[0:10] welcome everybody I'm going to call the meeting to order we do have a quorum this is the Monday November 18th 2019 [0:17] regular he Dinah's school board meeting and I'm going to turn to the superintendent for a quick overview of [0:22] our agenda so we'll start with approval of the minutes from meetings and work sessions in the past we'll hear from [0:28] members of the audience following that we'll have a world's best workforce hearing presentation by teaching [0:35] learning staff and then the hearing to follow we have four items on consent and [0:40] in discussion we will presenting our first discussion for the 2020 21 school [0:46] calendars talk about a substitute teacher management system we have four policy updates an administrative [0:53] presentation on the impact of changes to policy 601 and for action will have our auditors here to present the district [1:02] financial audit to other policies to approve and then revise language for [1:07] policy six who want to prove all and then for your information you have monthly enrollment report some other policy updates and then the combined [1:15] world's best work for workforce and achieve an integration report so with [1:20] that is the agenda all right thank you can I get a motion to approve the minutes from the October 14th work [1:26] session the October 14th regular meeting October 24th special meeting November 4th work session November 7th work [1:32] session in the November 12th special meeting are there any changes I had a [1:42] question on the minutes regarding our discussion with mr. heisted and I [1:50] noticed in the minutes it said that they'll meet he'll meet with teaching and learning and I thought we had [1:56] actually talked about going out for an RFP and then just wondering there had [2:04] been some talk about a committee being formed around this and if you could give us any information on that [2:11] the four with David I said yes or data [2:16] at and and analytical analysis and getting community so I think David [2:23] heisted is coming at some point once we get our calendars aligned to have him come today I think was to come to [2:29] teaching and learning so that was that is still in the plant I just think we've haven't scheduled it because we've been [2:34] had other things on the agenda and then there are some I have been talking to [2:39] some individuals within the school district just on ideas around sharing data and [2:46] what types of data would be best for our community okay thank you all right all [2:51] those in favor of approving the minutes from the October 14th work session October 14th regular meeting October 24th special meeting November 4th and [2:58] 7th work sessions and the November 12th special meeting say aye aye any opposed motion carried next we have [3:06] hearing from members of the audience we do welcome community input at our meetings at 7 o'clock for those who have [3:12] signed up to speak we ask that you keep your remarks to three minutes or less there are I think 11 different people [3:19] who signed up a number of them on the same policy so we would ask that to the extent that your comments were [3:25] previously stated that you try to abbreviate your comments just so we don't keep going on if you do have [3:32] comments about individual board members or employees or staff those should be directed to the superintendent and not [3:39] brought up in the public speaking period and then the other thing is we don't typically respond to comments made but [3:46] there will be follow-up so the first person signed up is Nicole Danielson [3:57] looks like you've got multiple places you could sit welcome thank you hi my name is Nicole [4:09] Danielson and I have two kids in Edina public schools I'm one of the leaders of the dyslexia parent Alliance and I'm [4:15] here tonight with Sonya Walters I'm here tonight to voice concern over policy 601 [4:20] and its potential implications I have a bachelor's and a master's degree from an Ivy League institution I understand the [4:27] need for academic rigor and challenge for our districts top performers I've also been to enough PTO meetings PLC [4:34] meetings board work sessions and school board meetings to understand the financial constraints that our district [4:39] faces I can't imagine anything more important that our schools can do for our learners than teaching them to read [4:45] third grade reading proficiency is a measure that is consistently called out because that is when students shift from [4:51] learning to read to reading to learn studies from the NA NIH tell us that if [4:57] a student isn't reading at grade level at the start of third grade there is a 75% chance they will never catch up and [5:03] read at grade level during their entire academic career it likely goes without saying but I'll explicitly say it here [5:10] if you struggle to read it will impact all other subject areas last year on [5:15] MCAS Edina had 25% of third graders considered not proficient in reading more staggering is that 63% of 3rd [5:23] graders who qualify for free and reduced lunch were not proficient what does a school day look like and feel like for [5:29] those kids I'll ask you to think about how you felt when you attended our dyslexia simulation and keep that in [5:35] mind as you vote tonight we have students going to Edina give-and-go requesting grants for reading tutoring [5:41] based on there's constraints give-and-go can't even cover a full month of tutoring for those kids we can't expect [5:48] that all families have the luxuries of time and money to get their children to twice weekly tutoring at the cost of [5:54] hundreds of dollars a month if they need help with reading this evening our district will present a chart that was [6:00] shown last spring with 2019 map reading growth by percentile during that spring [6:05] meeting it was shared that a Dinah's graph is the opposite trend from what is typical our top performing kids exceeded [6:11] their growth targets and our students lower than the 50 percentile did not in the past year or [6:17] so our district has made some great steps towards addressing the needs of struggling readers they have plans for [6:22] more work in this area you'll hear tonight the policy 601 would halt or postpone that progress we have kids in [6:29] our district that can't afford for that to happen is there an opportunity from where rigor in our schools for our [6:35] highest performing kids perhaps but if that is at the expense of teaching our young students the fundamentals of [6:40] reading it would be devastating thank you thank you next is dr. Liang Hong [6:55] welcome and this is the first time I address the board and I'm a little bit [7:02] nervous but I will try my best and I'm a longtime resident at a diner my family [7:09] benefit tremendously from the Edina education system I net I know that all [7:15] of your part member Delta K a lot of for your own personal time to our community [7:20] service and we truly appreciate that and my my daughter and my older son graduate from [7:28] Edina high they all go into the top stem [7:34] Corps University and doing well well there so I think it Dyna provide a good [7:39] foundation for them to go further in college and later on your career and we [7:44] have and my family are very playful to do that and I also know that Edina [7:50] school district is in a friendly competition with our neighboring stood district especially with Minnetonka and [7:57] Bloomington also we are very good school districts especially Minnetonka and last [8:05] year Minnetonka have a significant more National Merit semifinalist than Edina [8:10] and I also noticed that Minnetonka has a full-time separate gifted program named [8:17] navigator for elementary student staff in the second grade and I also know that [8:25] in Burlington they have a full-time gifted program called animun in the [8:31] second and third grade and after that there's a program full-time program core [8:37] dimension Academy from the fourth to eighth grade and the reason I know about that is that my younger son is a second [8:46] grader Edina and he was approached by two of the program and except one of [8:52] them and I know that some of my friends or neighbors that they they end up [9:00] sending their kids to to this full-time gifted program and because of that Dinah [9:07] school district lost revenue because they law student and sometimes I think that he diners we all know that we [9:15] are very good at a hockey tennis or swimming we we know that only a [9:23] selectively we're truly telling the student end up being in the versity [9:28] program but all of the student are look up to them and try to be one of them [9:34] so I sing a highly visible a highly visible and vigorous gifted program will [9:41] serve the same purpose only maybe only a few student can go go to that program [9:47] and benefit directly from the program but all the student will look up to them [9:53] and you try to be one of them so I think very hard should I send to the kids to [10:00] the give program but I at this point i think that edina have a lot of benefit [10:05] and i would try to voice my opinion tooth and also after the gifted program [10:10] the continuation of the revisit 601 program i think will benefit the [10:16] community in general so dev we have a continuation after the elementary or junior high gift program we have [10:23] continuation to the high school and thank you for listening to me thank you [10:28] next is young John Howe [10:38] welcome my name is jung jin ho and i have PhD in mechanical engineering and [10:44] the first i'd like to thank the opportunity from you to share my opinion and also want to show my great [10:51] appreciation to all of you who have dedicated your time and effort to the [10:57] school board and by willing to serve being really to serve the community and [11:03] is a proof that you care about our students you care about our school system and you care about our city i [11:10] thank you and in my opinion education policies should be dynamic they should [11:16] evolve and improve to address the ever changing needs of our students and also [11:22] we need to face the problems and the challenges we may run into therefore I applaud an effort for policy [11:30] 601 revision Edina public schools has a very long history of excellence but we [11:37] should never become complacent we must be paying attention to all the time to [11:42] any areas that we may improve in to learn the successful experiences from [11:48] other schools public or private domestic or international from the standpoint of [11:54] equity Edina public school should dedicate to provide a good education to [12:00] all and every student may this student be a special needs student a high [12:07] achieving student or most more commonly a student in the middle because we have [12:12] a Muslim student in the middle because every student is unique to their parents [12:19] to their family every student deserve a good education every student should be challenged to [12:26] grow up to be his or her best self the purpose for education is not to meet [12:32] state requirements it is promote to promote a positive learning environment and encourage every student to grow to [12:40] their full potential it is widel believe that since the regular students beat the state [12:47] proficiency requirements they don't need any more assistance this is the reason [12:52] that we should redirect most of the resources through those students who need extra help to meet the requirements [12:58] why I'm not against the effort to help the students who struggle I do believe [13:04] the regular students deserve their fair share of attention too since with some [13:09] help they may achieve even more than they currently do most of the families [13:15] chose Edina as their homes because of the excellent public schools if our [13:20] schools only care about a small group of students it is really not fair to the other students and their families [13:27] if this regular students are from affluent families let me get extra help [13:33] from outside of school but what about those students who were doing okay but [13:38] their families do not have the means to get them extra help those students who [13:45] would just fall through the cracks of our system and never know that they could otherwise have gone much higher [13:51] and achieved much bigger more often than not is sufficiently challenging [13:57] curriculum tend to demotivate the students since the content and his [14:02] pace of study making them a few bored and eventually they may just lose [14:08] interest in learning altogether currently South view middle school [14:13] offers some ik any reached classes one mention sorry because I have an eighth grader right now II sauce fail but this [14:21] actually enriched classes are not consistently for example in reach the LA and their social studies are offering [14:28] seventh grade but not a reach science an eighth grade science was offered but no [14:36] enriched social studies this enriched the classes and also use the exact same [14:41] curriculum as regular classes which do not offer the rigor for motivated [14:47] learners my eighth greatest song can often finish and work right in the class and he feels pretty bird [14:55] mr. who could you please wrap up okay yeah all right be done I myself actor grew up in Nance not so [15:02] wealthy family my parents did not have the resources or even money set to seek a extra help outside of school my [15:09] education relied entirely on public schools fortunately the schools I attended put [15:14] all their effort unpromoted learning and academic excellence among all students as a result I become a very motivated [15:22] and the school's provided all the help I needed to excel should we have ignored [15:27] my needs since I have always been an okay student I would not possible they [15:32] have gone all the way to get my PhD and it would never have been able to make an [15:37] impact in the high-tech industry as I could do today I support the proposed [15:42] revision of policy 601 that offer honor classes to those students who are motivated who can thrive with extra [15:50] challenge that who can eventually make a much more significant impact on society [15:55] and on their lives thank you thank you [Applause] [16:03] next is Sarang [16:14] welcome hello everyone it's also my first time leaving never said beginning [16:21] thank you everybody everyone for the time have me to address [16:27] here my name is a Xiao Huang people call me philip i living edina since 2017 I burn a physics PhD [16:37] degree in Michigan I moved here and I have two dollars an older one is in 4th [16:42] grader first question here what reminds you of Edina great neighborhood convenient [16:50] transportation great great school sports hockey champion soccer champion Kohana [16:57] school I think it is most important that we also have a great great great school [17:03] education that's why I moved in here that's why young families keep moving [17:08] here for a great sports team what do each year for a wing right then how to [17:15] get a wing I believe every coach will ask the players to bring their best into [17:20] the game it is the same for school education we want to have our kids to [17:26] bring their best to becoming better and achieve higher level while the lower [17:32] level kids go for closing academic gaps get helping and higher level kids should [17:38] be allowed and wor rewarded with a higher level challenges and last check I [17:44] want to remind everyone that more than 70 percent of our high school students achieved proficiency or exceeded a [17:52] proficiency when they graduate seeking excellence for everyone every level of [17:58] kid is a strategy but the most important and it needs to be grounded with practice the practice now I think when I [18:06] read is reading in policy to a six zero one revision thanks to several board [18:12] members here to raise this up I'm here to support passing the revision as I [18:17] really want to be proud for in Dinah's school and all-around achievements and I [18:23] want to keep our diner excellent in the future thank you everyone thank you next is Scott Mayer [18:41] welcome great thanks again for for letting me to speak tonight my name is [18:47] Scott Meyer and I'm here to talk to you guys regarding policy six that one and speak [18:52] the importance of providing our children the ability to excel through coursework specific to their ability level however [18:59] field that some context is needed so that you guys can understand where my motivations come from my wife and I [19:05] attended Edina public schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade both the diner grads from 98 and 99 and we [19:12] both felt academically challenged and we were able to attend to college of our choice I was fortunate enough to accept [19:18] an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy and if you're familiar with any of the service academies you [19:23] know that the academic rigor is pretty pretty intense however I felt very very prepared when I showed up there the next [19:32] 15 years took our family all over the world flying f-16s defending our country and with my last active duty assignment [19:38] actually ended up in Tucson Arizona living in the number one school district there in Tucson and had the opportunity [19:45] to move and when given that opportunity my wife and I decided to move back to [19:50] Edina based on our experience and the perceived academic excellence that we both knew about at this point in time I [19:59] currently fly still for the ministry Air National Guard flying f-16s and live locally and obviously here need ainít [20:06] and work in the Twin Cities but through the past few years since we did move back my wife and I have been very surprised to see the direction our [20:12] schools have gone since nearly 20 years ago when we did graduate we have three children here in the Dino school [20:17] districts and our two oldest in grades six and three both utilize and benefit [20:23] from the gifted and talented math and reading programs we expect our Young's to follow suit based on their their [20:30] teacher inputs as well our kids thrive in challenging environments and you can [20:35] believe that they audibly complain about not being challenged enough in school and come home and say that they are [20:41] bored the need to provide outlets for kids who are capable of being challenged is not only necessary but in my opinion [20:47] is for the best interest of every student in the classroom I work daily an extremely diverse and [20:53] challenging flying environment where split-second decisions no kidding could mean the difference between life and death the process to get to this point [21:02] took years of competition and evaluation among peers so that's a real thing if you don't think it is it is a mirror I [21:08] did read your report I appreciate all the detail that you provided Ellen thank you again for the PowerPoint and the [21:14] bottom line here is I feel like I'm educated on the information that has provided by all of you and this has not [21:22] come lightly I really do hope that you [21:27] do vote YES for policy six of one revisions and and finally for the members of the board who think that [21:32] there aren't families who are considering moving based on the decisions that you guys make on a daily basis you're wrong because it is very [21:40] very important my wife and I are considering you know different options [21:46] based on the direction that we are going so it's a real thing [21:52] it's not not coming that my wife and I want at all nor did we ever imagined moving back to the city that we grew up [21:57] in and that we loved so again I'd ask that you please vote in support of the [22:02] policy six of one revision Thanks thank you next is heidi teats [22:29] welcome thank you my name is Heidi teats [22:37] and I've lived in Edina for 15 years I'm here today to urge the board to approve [22:42] the changes to policy 601 three years ago on the map tests 65% of Edina [22:49] students scored at the 80th percentile or better in both reading and math today [22:56] 50% of the students scored at the 80th percentile or better on those subjects a [23:01] 15% reduction that reduction in this short time period is very concerning [23:07] also there have been comments that honors and enriched classes would benefit only a niche of students however [23:16] when honors and enriched classes are offered one-third of students elect to take them I would argue that 1/3 is not [23:23] a niche and with 50% of Edina students testing at the 80th percentile in both [23:30] reading and math it suggests that many more students could benefit from successfully completing honors and [23:37] enriched classes I would like to ask the board why they might vote against a [23:42] policy that could benefit 50% of Edina students in addition I'm concerned about [23:48] the proposed approach of placing all students in a single class it is not [23:53] logical to expect that a teacher can meet the learning needs of our most challenged learners and our most [24:00] accelerated learners much less the needs of the Forgotten middle with 32 students [24:06] in the same classroom a mind is a terrible thing to waste we must expect [24:11] our schools to elevate each and every student to their highest potential it is [24:16] not enough to say that our most accelerated learners will get it on their own that is a failure of our [24:24] educational system that does not provide learning to challenge our accelerated learners to their highest potential in [24:30] Edina schools that is as many as 50% of our student body Edina residents are taking their [24:37] students out of Edina I heard of yet another student considering leaving today because they [24:44] are failing to meet the educational needs of there's children strong public schools are necessary to keep our [24:50] country strong I urge the board to vote in favor of the changes to policy 601 in order to meet [24:58] the academic needs of a large segment 50% of our population and to stem the [25:05] tide of students leaving our district to get their academic needs met I thank you [25:10] for this opportunity to speak and for your public service thank you next next [25:20] is Heather teats and after and that will be Maria Lux welcome Heather teats [25:35] mother of a 6th grader and 9th grader and I'm going to talk about data cuz [25:41] that's what I try and talk about we've talked about why someone might not want to vote for 601 the concept that it's [25:48] only a small percentage of our student population I know 10% was thrown out there during the school board election [25:54] but depending upon the year between 30 and 35 percent of the dinah kids test [26:00] above 90th percentile again on the attending on the year between 25 and 35 [26:06] percent of kids test between the 80th and 90th percentile so between 50 and 65 percent are testing 80th percentile and [26:13] above so 50 to 65 percent half to 2/3 [26:18] that's not a small group of kids right 80th percentile means they're probably [26:23] not served by being in the state standards were focused towards the [26:29] standard class so if we're gonna meet the academic needs of 2/3 of our kids then we need to be focusing on honors [26:36] classes tracking there's the concept [26:42] that this is tracking in Edina anybody any student can raise their hand and say [26:47] I want to be in honors you don't have to have a certain test score you don't have to to get a certain a CT score you can [26:53] just say hey today I want to do that you didn't if you didn't take honors in seventh grade doesn't matter you can take honors in eighth grade so this is [27:00] in no way tracking so that's disingenuous okay the concept of differentiation and that [27:07] being okay and we don't need honors courses okay let's talk once again about the fact we talked about formative and [27:13] summative summative is nine is ninety percent of the grade that's everybody [27:19] taking the same test everybody's taking the same things that focus for ninety percent of the grade all this differentiation is that 10 percent [27:26] formative the kids figure out really quickly hey I'm gonna take that pretest I'm gonna take that final test I'm gonna [27:31] get an A all this other stuff over here doesn't really matter for my grade I might choose to do it I might not versus [27:39] if you sign up for an honors class that's at a different pace a different content you are then challenged and [27:44] making that decision for the whole time and appropriate pace and challenge also [27:49] we are going to go back to getting the data for the ninth and tenth grade English okay we took away enriched [27:56] classes in ninth and tenth grade English we should be looking at the data of what happened I say this every month we know [28:04] the MCA scores went down okay we had a one year bump in a CT reading scores [28:11] this year hooray let's see if that's a trend okay but we also did meet looking these are pre AP classes [28:17] what happened and the AP English test we have data we know fewer kids are taking [28:22] it maybe not getting the same percentage of three fours and fives versus the one year of data we have before this change [28:27] we need that five years of data you can get to us board members you can get it to us administration you can be [28:33] transparent you can share that with us and we can do a transparent of what happens when you don't have honors classes versus what happens when you do [28:39] okay cost and scheduling we've talked about losing kids I think on average the [28:46] last three years we've been losing about a hundred and sixty some kids on average over three years the number this year [28:52] was 120 something we were able to get 90 some kids back through open enrollment that 34 I think kids that we lost take [29:00] that time so eighty five hundred that's about $250,000 that goes a long way towards new curriculum [29:08] if we're not losing those kids every year and then one of the biggest reasons was lack of rigor like that Edina [29:13] residents are choosing not to send their kids here and scheduling flextime okay [29:20] I'm wrapping up last week my child did friendship bracelets took Mauro there [29:25] making crepes I would trade that for an honors class thank you after Maria [29:37] laughs we'll be Jennifer would welcome [29:43] thanks for having me here this could be hard to follow Heather she took some of [29:49] my lines I'm Maria Luke's I'm a parent of three students at a Dinah public [29:55] schools I have been a member of the GT district Advisory Committee for four [30:00] years and over that time I've attended all school board meetings related to advanced academics and Student Assessment and here's why I support the [30:08] changes to policy 601 as Heather and her mom pointed out over fifty percent of [30:16] the students in a Dinah test above the 80th percentile on standardized tests in [30:21] classes that focus on grade-level standard will not be a good fit for many students the need to provide advanced [30:28] students with curriculum that is appropriate at the quote unquote level complexity and pace is acknowledged in [30:34] Minnesota State statute and is the first recommendation of the GT study that was approved by the board almost three years [30:40] ago participants in the GT study included parents teachers and administrators EPS offers programming [30:48] for GT and advanced students however the delivery of the programming differs greatly by elementary school and has [30:54] gaps in the secondary grades we are reaching the end of the three year implementation phase for the GT study [31:00] and the district has not provided a plan or a timeline to fill the well acknowledged curriculum inconsistencies [31:05] and gaps the various enrichment off options offered by the schools under the [31:11] umbrella of personalized learning flex time and embedded honors are not a replacement for appropriate curriculum [31:17] delivered by a teacher I applaud the school board members that [31:22] bringing forward the revisions to the policy 601 for delivering on a promise made to parents almost three years ago [31:28] one of the main arguments being made against policy 601 revision is cost I'm [31:33] not here to argue about cost projections but any evaluation of the change needs to consider revenue as well as cost more [31:40] specifically families are leaving the school district and citing a lack of rigor and advanced classes one of the top reasons that said I really do not [31:49] think the cost is behind the opposition to revising 601 I think the opposition is philosophical I think many [31:55] administrators and teachers view student ability grouping and offering honors classes as inherently bad and [32:01] detrimental to students in lower ability groups the efforts to make classrooms [32:06] more balanced from a racial socio-economic and ability perspective perspective are laudable but only a [32:12] student's needs are being met when the ability range of a class becomes too high less students get attention from a [32:18] teacher that is appropriate to their level EVS has implemented various curriculum and pedagogical changes to [32:25] keep students together in the same classroom however there is no commitment to objectively measure the impact of [32:31] these changes and there are indications that there are negative impacts especially for students that are not [32:37] proficient the lack of objective measurement regarding the impact of policy changes is a big red flag for me [32:43] the other red flag is that parents that support advanced classes are regularly labeled as greedy because their kids are [32:50] already successful elitist and now segregationist by district employees on [32:55] social media if administration was interested in making sure curriculum was working well for students they would [33:01] embrace objective measurement and they would never put the needs of they would [33:06] never put the needs of different students against one another the reality is that having multiple high quality [33:13] options for students will be a better fit for all students it helps the students that are ready to move on to [33:19] above grade level work and it helps students that are struggling and need more time with grade-level material [33:24] saying that this policy is being pushed at the expense of struggling students is not correct as you consider your vote [33:31] for policy 601 please remember that all students in the district deserve to have access to curriculum appropriate for them [33:37] delivered from a teacher offering the same to everyone isn't either [33:42] appropriate or fair revising 601 to protect options for advanced students recognizes the legitimate needs of many [33:49] dinah students and helps all students receive more appropriate instruction thank you thank you after after Jennifer [34:00] Wood will be Sara firmata welcome well I [34:10] know you have a long night ahead of you so I'm going to keep it brief just to hit the bullet points I encourage the [34:17] board to approve the proposed changes to policy 601 I think that this policy [34:24] change will honor what the stakeholders have identified as a priority of the [34:30] strategic plan and that's academic excellence and rigor this policy change [34:36] is not geared to help just a few it broadens access to advanced learning [34:42] opportunities to a wide range of students I think the district's done excellent work in math and we see those [34:50] kids fully develop their potential and I love the thought that we would share [34:56] that with students who have aptitudes in other areas like language arts and the [35:02] sciences I also like that the policy changes are structured with open doors [35:09] students can self-identify as ready for more rigor and opted in it gives [35:16] students and their families more choice where it matters and that's in the core [35:21] subjects I don't understand the extreme opposition to this proposal by district [35:29] leadership they oppose adding honors level courses to core subjects while [35:35] less than a year ago they asked this board to add new courses like digital [35:40] photography and soccer theory it makes no sense to me to pedal away a few [35:48] thousand here and a few thousand dollars there for electives and then come to this [35:54] community and say we can't afford to give you honors level courses so in sum [36:00] I encourage you to embrace this effort and allow more students to maximize [36:07] their potential thank you thank you [36:16] after Sara Romano would be Eleni Clara [36:34] good evening school board and district administrators my name is Sara Ramada I [36:44] had I'm a diner graduate and I have two sons that are Edina graduates [36:56] I am here personally about 601 because [37:03] of the diverse needs of the 10th grade students and the failure of pre-ap 10 [37:08] language arts to meet the needs of all the students because of that I support [37:16] 601 I've been sitting in school board meetings and work sessions for a couple [37:22] of years and almost every single meeting we've talked about that one class we you [37:30] it needs to be addressed I'm gonna argue [37:36] what's one of Heather's points where she said you know kids can just sign up for any class and they can take it I will [37:46] tell you a student with an IEP it's discouraged from taking any AP [37:51] classes even if it's their greatest hurts desire they have all of the [37:58] administrators in the high school opposed to it all right so the real [38:06] reason that I'm here I just passed out the narrowing the third grade reading gap embracing the [38:14] science of reading information there are extra copies and back if anybody wants [38:20] them or I can email the PDF if people would like to see it this document on [38:30] page 7 95% of elementary students regardless of background are cognitively [38:36] capable of learning to read 95 percent and we're sitting at what 65 percent [38:45] proficiency page 20 research confirms [38:51] strong readers decode we need to teach decoding and it can't be that we're not [38:59] going to teach decoding because we're supporting policy 601 it's not an [39:05] either/or it's that both it's an and we need to do it all and on page 38 and 39 there are three [39:14] examples of success success is possible in reading and you need to start working [39:21] with the science of reading and and help [39:27] these students and get them reading sooner rather than later thank you thank [39:34] you after all any glaring will be Pamela [39:41] Balabushka ray welcome hi good evening [39:52] my name is Eleni Glen and I want to thank you two for the opportunity to once again speak about policy 601 and [40:00] I'm here to offer a little different perspective and talk about my concerns [40:06] about the implementation time frame about the policy first of all I do not [40:11] believe the board has done a thorough cost analysis of the proposed changes and I know there's been a lot of talk [40:17] about that tonight but I don't know if we actually have the hard details of cost but rather guesses about where the [40:26] money's going to come from in a in a time when we are challenged by a limited [40:32] budget I would like to think the board would be seeking a more detailed understanding of the financial impact of [40:39] these changes to our district at a previous board meeting where this issue was brought up as a discussion point it [40:45] was shared by a board member that a low cost curriculum was found online as a way to reassure us that this would not [40:52] be a costly venture is this the criteria that we will be using to select [40:57] materials for our district and the changes to policy 601 I'm not only concerned with start-up costs but also [41:04] the ongoing staffing costs training and possible and creat costs related to class sizes [41:10] second mmm the timeline for implementing this plan is this working okay [41:16] the timeline for implementing this plan by next school year seems incredibly [41:22] rushed from a sheer practical perspective registration for next school year begins in February so it would seem [41:30] to me that these classes would have to be fully developed by then in order for students to register appropriately how [41:37] are students at all levels identified for these classes will students be opting in and our opt in students simply [41:45] going to register for the new classes because they are marked as honors instead of understanding the fundamental [41:51] differences in curriculum I also believe that our administration will have very little time to address impact on [41:58] scheduling particularly as it will affect the middle school not to mention [42:03] if this is will be enforced beginning in grade three as initially proposed as a [42:10] full board you have not met with teaching and learning the middle school or high school principals or teachers [42:16] who will be responsible for this new curriculum and frankly I'm concerned that best practices of instruction will [42:23] be put forward without what I believe to be this critical input finally I just [42:29] want to publicly say that I support and trust our administration and I support [42:34] and trust our teachers I do not believe that they have endorsed the changes to this plan and I think we need to think [42:41] about what the message is that we are sending if these proposed changes pass I urge you to pause and consider the many [42:49] implications of the changes ahead I really appreciate the time thank you [42:55] thank you after Pamela Balabushka Rhea's Bethenny [43:03] Michaelson welcome thank you I'm Pamela [43:17] Balabushka ray I have two kids a TPS one at the high school and one in middle [43:22] school as you know Edina public schools new strategic plan is being drafted [43:29] priorities the mission statement action plans and resource allocations are being [43:34] determined the strategic plan has not been approved yet an area in need of [43:42] attention and investment is mental health students report intense pressure [43:48] rising stress peer and parental judgment regarding achievement little sleep and [43:55] the feeling that going for help in support at school is difficult at last [44:01] count there were two thousand six hundred and ninety-six students at Edina high school there are three three social [44:10] workers that averages out to eight hundred and ninety eight students each [44:17] there are nine school counselors who each support two hundred and ninety nine [44:23] students there's one school psychologist two licensed school nurses one colleague [44:30] located Frazier mental health professional and a very part-time [44:35] chemical dependency counselor our student support professionals are [44:41] exceptional they are devoted and work very hard under challenging circumstances there isn't just no way [44:49] that they can help all the students who need it with current staffing there has [44:54] been some creative and innovative thinking and support from the community to help with mental health needs in our [45:00] schools I hope that continues that generous help should come on top of an [45:05] already strong foundation the strategic plan mentions the draft [45:12] and student well-being and mental health a handful of times since our budget is [45:17] extremely tight difficult decisions will have to be made about what to fund I [45:22] hope that mental health will rise to the top of our priorities I decided to speak [45:28] tonight because I know that policy 601 will be discussed the additional honors [45:33] courses being proposed by a group of board members to add rigor to our curriculum will come at a large [45:39] financial cost the added pressure on students to perform may come with a [45:44] mental-health costume teachers and student support staff should finally be [45:50] consulted before investing in this policy it should not be pushed forward before the strategic plan is finished [45:58] and our district resources are analyzed in a holistic way that serves all of our [46:03] students things thank you [Applause] [46:17] welcome um hi I'm Bethany Michelson and [46:22] I'm coming because I'm a mother of four children if they've collectively attended Edina schools for a total of 44 [46:29] years I'd like to share why I believe the continuation and expansion a [46:35] specific dedicated enrichment courses or the equivalent is so important for students in a word 601 what I believe is [46:43] it's an opportunity an open door as someone else said and I'd like to illustrate this with a pretty specific [46:49] story we've heard a lot of macro looks at that that have been very worthwhile but this is more specific I'd like to [46:56] summarize one of my students stories earlier in his school years he was diagnosed with dyslexia and his [47:03] difficulties with reading spelling and memorizing math facts made many parts of the curriculum difficult he focused on [47:10] learning to read write spell and practice math facts this meant working on reading every day of the year taking [47:17] summer school math practicing math facts all summer long and it included setbacks such as retaking a math class but he [47:24] wanted to take chemistry so he could continue to work on math he went to additional math labs his interest in [47:30] motivation to take more challenging classes became stronger and stronger and yet college-level work seemed daunting [47:37] this is when enrichment classes and dedicated teachers opened a door of opportunity they gave him the [47:43] opportunity to choose to challenge himself in something he was interested in and yet the stakes were lower than in [47:49] college building background knowledge and vocabulary and slowly working up to harder academics with support is [47:56] important for dyslexics and English language learners and many other students to be able to succeed in [48:02] college-level courses looking back I believe these enriched classes provided [48:08] vital steps that allowed him to gradually increase the challenges he took on and finally to enroll in ap [48:14] chemistry without that helpful on-ramp to greater rigor I have noticed that students can be very stressed and [48:20] overwhelmed by AP courses enriched classes which any student can choose to [48:25] opt into allows motivated students to increase their capability in a subject I believe this sequence of enriched [48:32] classes which leads to a wide variety of AP classes provides one of the best opportunities that Edina offers we are [48:40] noted for the breadth of AP classes that students can take and that many students actually pass their AP tests did you [48:47] know that it is possible to earn over a year of college credit through these AP courses this is a significant [48:52] opportunity all the next steps of Education will have limited numbers of students who will be accepted in higher [48:59] education will come with a high cost offering enriched classes for all students who are motivated enough to [49:05] sign up and to do the work is an unlimited opportunity we can continue to offer this valuable opportunity for our [49:12] students I work at a school that 75% students of color and 70 percent free [49:19] and reduced lunch every day I see talented capable students and their parents who desire a better opportunity [49:25] for their children I see children who overcome setbacks language barriers and a variety of challenges to be in a [49:32] setting that is academically challenging considering these students and their potential I don't understand how people [49:38] could assume that an enriched class wouldn't necessarily be segregated edina is a district that has been viewed [49:44] as one of the best academic districts in the state students from all cultures and backgrounds come here for an opportunity [49:51] these students are capable they're motivated and they're choosing to be in a school with high academic standards I [49:58] am confident that there are many students who are equally as motivated as my son enriched classes provide a vital [50:05] on-ramp to college-level classes why would we deny students that opportunity thanks thank you [50:16] so that completes hearing from members of the audience I want to thank everybody who came up and spoke it's [50:21] always helpful for the board to hear humidity input so thank you again we do [50:28] have a number of staff recognitions tonight first there's a commendation of the [50:33] special ed team at Highlands Elementary this is an email from a parent saying that how impressed and appreciative they [50:39] are with the special ed team at Highlands her and her husband walk out in awe and how much support their child [50:45] is getting from the team and how good they are at what they do then there's a combination of Jolin gamble who's a [50:51] teacher at Creek Valley Elementary and Amma email from anodyne a high school student and he apparently had her forgt [50:58] reading and fourth and fifth grade at Creek Valley and he said that I realized how much you've shaped my worldview and [51:04] helped me grow goes on by saying I think the way you taught the class inspired a joy of learning and a sense of morality [51:10] that I've carried throughout my life I don't remember much from the past two weeks much less my elementary school [51:15] years but as you know that your style of teaching was super impactful on me so thank you there's a commendation of Mary O'Keefe [51:22] random Baca Kristen Bennett and Shannon Stephen teachers at Cornelia elementary [51:27] in a note from a parent I just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know that yet again you have managed to place [51:32] our children with such amazing teachers thank you for leading an environment where great teachers want to be it means [51:38] so much to us that our kids are doing well in school and want to be there we [51:44] thank all of our teachers and our staff next we have the world's best work force [51:50] hearing so we shift sort of art from a meeting to a hearing okay so I'm going [51:56] to turn this over to Randy and Donna and their team to do the presentation for [52:02] world's best work force which is a piece of legislation that requires school districts to report the outcome of goals [52:23] so Randy let me just jump in for a second so because this is hearing and [52:29] not a meeting there is an opportunity for audience members to ask questions unlike the normal board meeting [52:35] so again know if you have questions wait till an appropriate time or wait till the end and then feel free to step in [52:44] yeah just add to that will do the presentation first then we'll take the questions right after that presentation [52:51] is this working good evening my name is Randy smalls l'm [52:57] director of teaching learning here at Edina public schools and I'm excited for our team to be here this evening to talk [53:05] about our world's best workforce achievement and integration report so [53:10] thank you chair Wallen Friedman super tennis Schultz our board members and our community members and our audience for [53:16] being here today what we're going to present to you is a little overview of our world's best [53:22] workforce goals some of our strategies for improving those goals and you'll hear from different workforce world's [53:29] best work force committee members regard if ur n't elements of that legislation [53:35] and some of the work that's going that is happening across the dine in public [53:40] schools on the second slide we recognize the world's best work force committee [53:45] members there's quite a few members both teachers and parents and community members and we have higher ed we have [53:51] students that are part of this particular group and this district [53:57] committee really reflects the diversity of the district and at school sites and includes a variety of different [54:03] individuals but I'd like to highlight some that are here this evening and we'll be presenting so we have Carolyn [54:09] Jackson who is sitting next to me who is a world best workforce member and committee member and has presented in [54:16] the past on this topic we have Donna Roper our director of research evaluation we have Mary Mandor Feld our [54:22] director of equity enrollment we have Caroline Linden who is our k12 leaders a specialist teacher on special [54:29] assignment we have Andy beaten our high school principal Rodriguez are multilingual specialist at the district [54:36] we have Lea Byrd who is our early childhood program coordinator and then we also have some other guests from the [54:44] high school we have three of our science teachers who will be speaking tonight about some of the practices they've been [54:51] implementing to close some of the access and opportunity gaps and science at the high school we have Steve Sanger one of [54:57] our science teachers we have Jeff Crouse and Erik burr fine from the high school so thank you everybody for being willing [55:03] to come and speak this evening and with that I'm going to turn it over to Carolyn Jackson to speak a little bit [55:09] about the history of the legislation of world's best workforce and some of the parameters that guide the work of that [55:15] committee thank you and thank you everybody I don't know how to turn my head address [55:22] the board I don't mean to be rude turn my back on you the world's best workforce was legislation passed in 2013 [55:28] to look at closing achievement gaps and the reason that this legislation was passed there's a nice summary on the [55:35] Department of Education website for Minnesota to be competitive we must have students who are career and college [55:41] ready poised to lead the state's workforce this is important for a number of reasons our population is aging 70% [55:48] of jobs will require more than a high school diploma by 2018 we don't have an adequate number of qualified candidates [55:55] to fill many good-paying jobs the fastest-growing segment of our future workforce is students of color and they [56:01] currently have the state's lowest graduation rate in Minnesota has one of the worst black-white achievement gaps [56:06] in the country and so the point of this legislation is to bring people up into [56:11] the workforce ready to to work when they graduate or go to go to college if the [56:16] legislation underwent some significant changes in 2016 it added another [56:22] component there were originally five components and add a sixth component I'll go over that in a minute and also [56:28] aligned a lot of reporting that districts have to do so rather than sending in six different reports they [56:36] can just send it in as the world's best workforce so if you want to go to the next slide these are the components that were added in 2016 [56:44] that we're not going to really be going over that tonight but all these reports are now streamlined together to try and cut back on some of [56:51] the burden on the districts so in the next slide these are the areas that the [56:56] world's best workforce covers we want to have see progress in school readiness that's all kids ready for kindergarten [57:04] everyone's reading well by third grade closing academic and achievement gaps and part of that is the 2016 legislation [57:12] added achievement an integration progress summary all students ready for to graduate for high school attain [57:20] college and career prep preparedness and then also from the 2016 legislation equitable access to excellent teachers [57:28] and to diverse teachers so these are all things that the state is requiring us to do there's a lot of stuff the district [57:34] was already doing and a lot of districts around the state but the legislature wanted to streamline this that we're all [57:40] pulling together to bring that workforce all ready for the next century or pretty for 2018 and on so we're there but it [57:47] but going forward so that's what the legislation background is thanks Carolyn [57:52] the next slide is just kind of a highlight slide of the goal areas and [57:58] for the next few minutes you're going to hear from other members more details about each of these goal areas but what [58:05] I what you can obviously see is at a high level where we met our targets and where we have not yet made progress so [58:12] we'll talk more in detail about each of these but I do want you to know that we use objective external standardized [58:19] measures to monitor our progress in each of these areas the school readiness area [58:26] is always a work in progress it's the one area that the State Department doesn't really have any outcome measures [58:32] from districts yet and then of course the goal-setting process has evolved a [58:39] little bit over time and we can now use multiple measures local measures and state data so that is what we're doing [58:46] in each of these areas and you're going to hear more about that as we go through the presentation [58:58] hi everybody is it on hi everybody well [59:03] it's really nice to be here this evening I'm Lea bird I'm the early childhood programming coordinator and I'm excited tonight to be able to share a little bit [59:10] with you about goal area number one which is school readiness the first thing I want to share is the definition [59:16] that we have up here says school readiness relies on multiple stakeholders coming together to create [59:21] experiences so that all levels of early learning are ready to support and promote the whole child including their [59:28] social and emotional well-being and academic success what's interesting about school readiness is as Donna sort [59:34] of spoke to is that it has a number of different definitions and often times [59:40] when you think about school readiness we think about getting the child ready to come to school and we really want to [59:47] kind of reverse that a little bit to think about the school being ready for the child and so what do we do as a [59:53] system to help kids when they get here and that they are ready to go on to kindergarten in the in the following [59:59] year so I'm going to speak a little bit about our goal statements thank you so [1:00:07] we had four different growth growth goals downstairs in Early Learning [1:00:14] Center and the first one was getting all kids ready for getting all kids screened for kindergarten as you know the state [1:00:21] of Minnesota has a law that all children need to have early childhood screening before they enter kindergarten and a [1:00:27] goal of a hundred percent of the incoming kindergarteners screened is actually pretty successful we're proud [1:00:33] of that because as you know and as we've heard tonight many people move to edina for the school system and we oftentimes [1:00:39] have that last month of summer where there's a lot of transition so families are moving into homes and setting up [1:00:46] their households and getting registered in Mary's office for school and not always thinking about oh and I have to [1:00:51] do this early childhood screening as well and so we're really proud to share tonight that we did screen all incoming [1:00:57] kindergarteners this school year and I want to share a little bit about the pyramid implementation model I've been [1:01:02] fortunate enough to share with you before what the pyramid model is but as a recap pyramid is a grant that we [1:01:08] are rewarded it's a five-year grant downstairs and we're awarded and pyramid is a curriculum or a system in which the [1:01:16] teachers and all staff are highly trained to help kids in their social emotional skill set so that they are [1:01:23] successful learners in school and our very first year was last year and we had [1:01:28] just a few of our four year old teachers that were going through the training and we're really happy to share this year [1:01:34] that all of our four year old teachers and all of our three year old teachers are going through the intense pyramid [1:01:39] training so they had two days of training during workshop week they have [1:01:44] a couple of different trainings throughout the school year every classroom teacher has a coach that goes in and helps support the work that [1:01:51] they're doing and watches and observes them they have a classroom observation as tool as well so we're excited that [1:01:56] that's really going well downstairs and then the last two goals talk a little bit about our early literacy and our [1:02:02] early numeracy and the goal being 60% or more of students make typical or aggressive growth in early literacy or [1:02:10] in early numeracy and you can obviously see that we beat 60% so again I've got glad to share that we had 76% for our [1:02:17] literacy and 71% for our numeracy okay [1:02:23] and so then the next slide talks a little bit about what are some of the improvement strategies that we're doing for our youngest learners so that they [1:02:30] are ready to come to school and primarily that we are ready for them to come to school so it's sort of under [1:02:36] three different categories or partnerships that we have our professional learning that we're doing and also the systems and practices and [1:02:42] I'm not because my time is limited I'm a talker but I've been told thirty seconds per slide I'm going to just touch on a [1:02:49] few of them so the first one I want to share with you is the pre-k K collaborative group that's a really big deal for a long time we didn't have a [1:02:57] lot of communication between the early childhood level and our k12 world and so about four years ago we started having [1:03:04] our four year old teachers meet with our kindergarten teachers they meet every six weeks every six weeks I have a [1:03:10] wonderful agenda and they hijack it and talk about what they want to talk about which is just fine we talk about early [1:03:16] literacy what are we doing in early childhood what are they in kindergarten how do they align what [1:03:22] are the state standards same exact thing with early numeracy interestingly enough we had a meeting last week and the [1:03:28] question within that group was what does kindergarten readiness mean to you in [1:03:33] the capacity of the hat that you wear so that's a really fun group and that's really open the doors for lots of [1:03:39] different partnerships and then the other thing I just want to touch up on on the list of partnerships is that we [1:03:44] have our Biondi CFA and again I've shared earlier with you that about three years ago we did our parent education [1:03:49] program study where we asked the parents of our community what do you want when you think of parent education and you [1:03:57] know many many people say all the time well I love DCF II that's kind of where I met my tribe those are the people that [1:04:02] really helped me figure out this parenting thing but the other thing that we heard a lot of is I can't participate [1:04:09] in the traditional model of ECFE anymore but I want parent IDI and so we brought [1:04:14] beyond DCF II where we offer a lot of different classes for parents in our community who might not be in the [1:04:21] traditional ECFE class we have a families and digital devices which is an [1:04:26] online class we have a girls in friendship class a parenting your child a special needs class numerous book [1:04:33] studies that we do they've been really really popular and we've seen our community like them professional [1:04:39] learning like all teachers in the district the early childhood teachers do participate in PLC's twice a month as [1:04:46] you know I just spoke to they have their pyramid implementation training that they do teaching strategies gold is our [1:04:52] standardized assessment that we use down in early childhood and just this fall we had a pretty in-depth training it one of [1:05:00] the important things is that we all have the same fidelity when implementing teaching strategies gold and then lastly [1:05:06] I'll just share a little bit about systems and processes we've done a lot of work over the last couple of years to really align with the district make sure [1:05:13] that we follow the district calendar that our teachers participate in district level professional development [1:05:20] opportunities just all of those different collaborations so happy to share a little bit with you about goal [1:05:26] number one if Donna asks that was three minutes [1:05:34] hello I'm Caroline Linden I'll speak to the slides for goal number two which is all third graders reading at grade level [1:05:40] so on this first slide you can see that there are three ways that we're measuring success for this goal the [1:05:48] first one is MCA proficiency the second is map growth and the third is map [1:05:53] proficiency so for goal number two last [1:05:59] year third graders and dyna grew by 5.5 percentage points and so the goal of 3.5 [1:06:05] percentage point growth was surpassed and on the next slide you'll see the [1:06:11] graph shows the winter 2018 map results compared to the 2019 results on the [1:06:18] right side of the slide the growth scores are shown in green and the [1:06:24] proficiency scores are shown in blue and both of those targets were met we [1:06:29] surpassed our growth goal by 3.3 points and just a little bit for the [1:06:35] proficiency on map as far as continuous improvement efforts the district [1:06:43] continues to analyze needs and listen to stakeholders and as a result Sunday essentials has been added to all k2 [1:06:49] classrooms we are also continuing to advance professional development in the area of reading assessment to help [1:06:55] teachers identify needs for all of their learners and create plans for them to [1:07:01] make progress also we have ongoing professional development based on a menu [1:07:06] of options some choice based by teachers and some that might be required on our [1:07:12] district professional development day in February PLC's continued support all our learners through Kroc collaboration and [1:07:18] embedded professional development is found throughout the elementary teacher literacy materials which means there are [1:07:25] embedded videos and resources that teachers can use at point of need at any time to further their own professional [1:07:31] development and lastly we've added some additional materials again I mentioned Sunday essentials in grades k-2 and in [1:07:39] addition we are supporting I excel in the older grades to make sure that students have access to extra time or [1:07:45] additional practice or acceleration if they would like and that's Michael I [1:07:56] think I get to do goal three I'm gonna start it and then some other people are gonna chime in here so as Carolyn [1:08:02] Jackson mentioned the world's best work force one of the primary goals is really addressing achievement gaps so this is [1:08:08] goal area three and we set some pretty rigorous targets for ourselves in this area and you can see that we assert that [1:08:15] we have not yet met our goal in this area we have a lot of things that we [1:08:21] wanted to do so the goal statements are around really monitoring our [1:08:27] lowest-performing student groups and in Edina unlike are not unlike any other [1:08:35] district the lowest performing student groups are black and african-american students are Hispanic Latino students [1:08:42] American Indians students are free and reduce students who receive free and [1:08:47] reduced price meals as well as our non-native English speaking students those are really our lower performing [1:08:54] student groups as measured by these standardized tests and so we set some [1:08:59] rigorous targets there because we really [1:09:04] want to fairly look at English acquisition for our ELL students we yo we decided to use the access test and it [1:09:11] you know as well as using the MCA test for the other low-performing groups so the next slide you see where we met our [1:09:19] 5-point proficiency goal we actually met it in science we made progress in [1:09:24] reading that as much as we would have liked to and you know to close achievement gaps you do have to [1:09:30] accelerate the proficiency rates and so you can see we didn't meet our [1:09:36] five-point goal in reading her math but we did in science as for free and reduced-priced meals students as well we [1:09:43] we met it in science and we have some science teachers here tonight to kind of [1:09:49] just really briefly mention a little bit about what they did I think the work [1:09:55] that they did this year was amazing we we saw lots of great progress and I'm just gonna let them tell their [1:10:02] story on that sure my name is Dirk Burton and I teach ap environmental science and general biology at the high [1:10:08] school I'm here with Jeff Krause who teaches enriched biology and general biology as well as Steve Sanger who [1:10:13] teaches human anatomy and ap biology we represent all three levels of biology [1:10:19] that is given at the high school so the thing that we are the most proud about is that every single one of these groups [1:10:25] saw increases in their scores especially if you look at like the the goals the [1:10:31] ones that were targeting the african-american Hispanic Latino students receiving free reduced prices [1:10:36] our free and reduced lunches they all saw very large increases in their in [1:10:42] their test scores if we just look at the MCA scores we kind of give a credit to two different levels people like to [1:10:48] focus on we made the MCA test worth something which obviously gave the students some motivation I think that's [1:10:55] been presented to the board before students that achieved a meet or exceeds had the option of having the MCA score [1:11:01] be worth all their semester final exam for second semester those that were proficient or does not meet than half of [1:11:08] the MCA score went to their final exam and then they took our own final exam from our classes as well so we viewed [1:11:15] that as an opportunity for voice and choice with the students they could choose to study a month in advance [1:11:21] especially their junior year where there's a lot of the academic rigor and looking at colleges and all that kind of [1:11:27] stuff it gave them in some ways relieved of some of the stress but also we could [1:11:32] identify those students with a month left in school that really needed our help and so we used our flex time we use time to to pull them to a side to really [1:11:40] work on those students as well the second part though I would say even more important is that our biology team has [1:11:46] been together for four or five years so we had our collaborative team has worked really well with each other we have have [1:11:52] really worked hard to have common objectives essential standards working really rigorously on writing and [1:11:57] technical writing we do a lot of innovative and creative things within the classroom that bring in some of the [1:12:04] higher level of skills like gene technology and CRISPR and we have students at all levels look at those [1:12:10] different skill sets so I feel like we've we've challenged our students we've reached them at that level and [1:12:16] we've given them an opportunity to show what what their knowledge is actually had in a valid assessment but [1:12:21] realistically we've made a point to have like strong connections with each and every one of our students and I think [1:12:27] that's where we as a biology team pride ourselves the most so thank you and then [1:12:34] I think Lee is here to talk about the next portion yep [1:12:40] I'd like to give you just a very quick review of who multilingual learners are and what access is last year our [1:12:47] department decided to start using the term multilingual learners instead of Els because we believe that MLS [1:12:53] recognizes the unique linguistic and cultural skills the students have and we see them as an asset and not as a [1:12:59] deficit an access is a standardized tests taken annually by multilingual learners that measures four things [1:13:05] measures listening speaking reading and writing as soon as shows proficiency or [1:13:11] X is the English English program if they score four point five four point four point five in this test each [1:13:17] multi-lingual learner of English has an annual goal to make progress towards [1:13:23] English proficiency and at the same time its district has its own goal to help [1:13:28] each learner reach that goal as you can see in the slide the goal of the Minnesota Department of Education is [1:13:34] that by 2025 80 85 % of multilingual learners of English you will be meeting the growth target even though our [1:13:42] districts learning target number grew by two percent compared to the previous year and is about the state level we [1:13:49] didn't know we because a district we did not meet the goal of the 55.5 growth that we had set up for last year so [1:13:56] there's still a lot of work that we all need to do to help our multilingual learners achieve the their target [1:14:15] so achievement and integration is now part of the world's best workforce that [1:14:20] happened in the 2018-19 school year the progress report for Ani is now part of [1:14:25] world's best workforce really the three goals of the achievement and integration [1:14:31] is increasing racial and economic integration reducing achievement [1:14:36] disparities and increasing access to effective and diverse teachers when you [1:14:42] see the next slide you will see that we have not quite met our goal these goals were written in 2016 as part of a [1:14:50] three-year plan so we are now in the last year of our three-year plan we will [1:14:56] begin in December writing or 2223 plan [1:15:01] at the time in 2016 the end of 2016 we really felt like a goal of increasing [1:15:09] our third grade reading by 8% was not too large yet we're not we're not [1:15:17] they're also having all students ready for college and career as measured by [1:15:22] the AC T we are at 63% but our goal was [1:15:27] to get it to 70% finally what are some of the what are some of the strategies [1:15:35] that we have been using specifically even out of a and I so out of the [1:15:40] achievement and integration budget which is about a million dollars probably 86% [1:15:45] or more go to direct student support and those are things like math bridge [1:15:52] classes at the high school we have reading support at both middle schools [1:15:59] looking at the scores last year and then at our anti budget we took some very [1:16:05] deliberate attempts and funding and put it in our all six of our elementary [1:16:10] schools so we increase the funding our elementary schools we're getting to serve our students that were behind [1:16:17] grade level so we took money out of a ni that in addition though we offer avid [1:16:23] college possible our liaisons are also [1:16:28] part of that which helped with the family engagement one of the professional developments we pay for out [1:16:34] of the achievement integration budget is the cultural and linguistic response of teaching I'll just add to that a few [1:16:46] other pieces around professional learning that is key work and is really critical to ensuring success of students [1:16:52] the state of Minnesota puts out standards that are required for all students and so some of the ongoing work [1:16:59] that we do is to just make sure that as those new standards come into the system that our courses and our grade levels [1:17:06] are aligned to those standards that our assessments are aligned to those standards that we have plenty of time to [1:17:12] do professional development with our teachers around those new standards and what they mean we also do a significant [1:17:18] amount of technology integration and the thing about technology is that it has to [1:17:23] help you do things that you were not able to do before that's when technology really leverages [1:17:29] or that's when we can really leverage technology to improve the educational environment if it's simply a replacement [1:17:35] of something we could do without the technology there's there's no power or no gain in that so the things that we're [1:17:41] looking for is how technology can do things that we can't we weren't able to previously do English English language [1:17:49] learning strategies and some of the work that we've done with teachers around that and maybe Ellie can you speak for [1:17:54] just a second well more than a second the coaching English for the mainstream [1:18:00] at Hamline the work that we've been doing there with some of our teachers yes so Hamlin University got a grant [1:18:06] through the US Department of Education to Train English as a second language teachers [1:18:12] teachers who have a license like myself so last year we had three three three our teachers sign up to be certified to [1:18:20] be coaches so there are three schools that are participating this year the two [1:18:25] middle schools and countryside our goal is that for next year we'll have all the schools all the teachers trained and [1:18:31] what our teachers are doing these three teachers are doing is there it's part of a cycle they meet with the [1:18:37] teacher set up some goals then they observe the teacher and then they give feedback because some of the challenges [1:18:44] that many some of our teachers have is that they don't have the strategy the strategy used to work with students who [1:18:50] speak language other than English so hopefully this project will help them give them the skills that they can teach [1:18:58] students who are mylink bilingual or multilingual Thank You Lee for your [1:19:04] leadership as well in the apt and leading that with teachers and with that we'll turn goal number four over to Andy [1:19:10] Beaton good evening everybody goal four is around college and career readiness and goal statements this year [1:19:17] are tied to a CT college readiness benchmarks the category where you look at all four indicators and the goal to [1:19:23] have that increased by two points and also increase the percentage of students meeting a CT stem benchmarks by two [1:19:30] points and and we were glad to meet the meet those goals this year on the next slide if you look kind of the trend line [1:19:36] they are broken down by subject area and you can see the trend where we are in terms of college readiness benchmark and [1:19:42] you can see this year where we had that increase in all four you can also see [1:19:48] the the indicator next to it of the state average which Dinah I'll be student very well with students meeting [1:19:53] college readiness benchmarks clearly but always room to improve the next is looks [1:20:01] at stem we were looking for a two point game we had a three point game again that's in math and science on our AC T [1:20:07] those stem benchmarks and you can see there that we increased and exceeded our [1:20:13] goal for this year and then the next slide is looking at advanced placements [1:20:19] participation and we've had study Advanced Placement participation I was excited this year that we had the most [1:20:25] students participating in Advanced Placement in our history at least Adana and I can find and a steady number of [1:20:32] exams that are given and also a high degree of completion and success the [1:20:37] most students the most students that that we've seen not exams we have an [1:20:43] exam year that was a little bit higher 2500 this last year we gave 24 87 exams but in [1:20:49] terms of the number of students participating we had a high number of students participating this last year and with [1:20:55] that 86 percent success rate so getting a three four or five on the exams which [1:21:00] is gives the opportunity for college credit or advance standing and so how do [1:21:05] we do some of these things I think you heard from our science teachers to talk about a really strong alignment to state [1:21:12] standards and core competencies it's why you know our biology team has been so successful they are very aligned and [1:21:18] focused in their instruction some things that we have done with the schedule change to have four-year plants built [1:21:25] through the myapp program where students are really registering for their four-year program when they're coming [1:21:30] into the high school doesn't mean it can't change but really looking ahead of what they might study after high school [1:21:36] some awareness around social-emotional skill development again built within our schedule and the advisory program access [1:21:43] is always an issue about Advanced Placement course offerings we have open access but we still need to do more [1:21:48] recruiting and encouragement of students to take on those challenges some things that we've done in the College and [1:21:55] Career Center in partnership with families is the access program we have a dedicated college and career counselor [1:22:00] but works with parent volunteers to really bring in their expertise it's one of the things that was important to me [1:22:06] when I came to Edina is to rely on and use the skills of our community and then [1:22:11] a growing number of partnerships with higher ed you have some teachers in the room here that have that teach concurrent enrollment classes those are [1:22:18] college classes that are taught within the high school again bringing in career speakers alumni feedback a new [1:22:24] partnership that we are working on right now with the rotary so again all these things tied to post-secondary planning [1:22:32] thank you Andy I will take goal number five to speak for a few minutes about all students graduate the definition for [1:22:40] this goals all students attending school need ayman will graduate from high school we do have very high graduation [1:22:46] rates but one of our specific goal statements was to increase by three points the percent of multilingual [1:22:52] learner students who graduate and we did meet that goal this last year in terms [1:22:58] of evidence of and all students graduating graduation is reported one year in arrears so we [1:23:04] wanted to see the graduation rate of multilingual English learners increase [1:23:10] and the statewide vision is that all student groups meet the 90% graduating [1:23:15] threshold and we are there in every group except for our special education students at this time so some of the [1:23:23] action steps around that are related to some of the previous action steps that our other speakers have shared already [1:23:33] going into 2020 the state is prioritizing equitable access to [1:23:38] excellent and diverse teachers as an important goal for world's best workforce so using the Minnesota [1:23:45] Department of Education 10 commitments to equity they are focusing on number 8 of value people which is really about [1:23:52] growing our teachers and our leaders and developing people to increase teacher [1:23:57] diversity and to ensure equitable access to the best teachers across our system [1:24:03] so if we look at this slide and we say well you know what what kind of [1:24:09] credentials do our teachers bring to the table you can see as you look to the far right there that's the percent of [1:24:16] teachers with advanced degrees in our school district and in Edina we believe we have some of the best data when it [1:24:22] comes to these metrics 97 percent of more than 3 years of teaching experience we're using licensed teachers nearly a [1:24:28] hundred percent of the time and more than 83 percent of our teachers have advanced degrees in addition we are [1:24:36] working on a partnership with the University of st. Thomas to grow your own and what that is about is taking [1:24:44] people within the organization including students and figuring out how can we create a path to increase the diversity [1:24:51] of our teacher workforce so with that I'm going to take us to the last slide [1:24:59] and thank you for giving us time to share this presentation with you and since this is a public hearing we will [1:25:05] open it up for questions from the audience at this time [1:25:43] so I think addressing the achievement gap is is a really wicked challenge [1:25:49] right it's a it's a problem everywhere and I think that you heard a lot from [1:25:56] people up here this evening some of the the improvement strategies that they're [1:26:03] they're using to try and address getting kids more motivated and engaged and so I [1:26:13] mean every standardized measure that we have gives us a very similar picture of [1:26:19] this very persistent achievement gap so so from a data perspective that's what I [1:26:25] can tell you from how do we close it I think it's in we I really believe the [1:26:32] work our science team did that we can learn from that there's some engagement and motivation that they did with all [1:26:39] kids but it really significantly benefited kids in those student groups [1:26:45] as well and made made progress on the gap that that's my perspective I don't [1:26:50] know if anyone else wants to answer so I'm going to go back to this slide and [1:26:56] and talk for a second about learning so [1:27:01] traditionally in school systems learning has been the variable and time has been [1:27:08] the constant so if you think about that for a minute the way school is [1:27:13] structured is that we give everybody about the same amount of time to learn [1:27:19] the content but we know that kids learn at different rates and we know that kids start in different places and some learn [1:27:26] much faster around specific concepts and some take more time and so one of the things we're trying to [1:27:33] do as a system is figure out how to flip that how to make learning the constant [1:27:38] and time the variable so how do we flex time during the school day given a set [1:27:45] amount of time how can we flex the time in that day so that we can keep learning as the as the expectation high levels [1:27:53] learning for all is the expectation and vary the amount of time kids need to get kids need to get there so additional [1:28:01] time is one of our key designs on making sure that there is time during the day [1:28:08] where we can intervene when students are either struggling in math or struggling and reading or struggling and writing or [1:28:14] struggling in science or other areas and be able to intervene during the school day we've also added significant supports [1:28:21] around reading writing and math at different levels one of the we we've [1:28:27] incorporated some technology this year that helps provide feedback to students [1:28:33] around where they're at in terms of progressing on standards around reading and math through I Excel we continue to [1:28:40] train teachers on different strategies that will help reach learners that maybe [1:28:45] we haven't reached as significantly in the past we are trying to be more culturally responsive and connecting to [1:28:52] kids so both of those things are really centered around relationships and we know that we're in this business because [1:28:58] we love kids and we know that building relationships with kids pulls them in [1:29:03] motivates them gets them excited about what we're learning we had a great ceremony prior to the board meeting tonight where students [1:29:11] were recognizing that particular element and recognizing the importance and value of relationship and what we do so we [1:29:18] know that those are really key important elements that make a difference we have a lot of work to still do and we can't [1:29:26] do it fast enough but we do have plans to continue to improve in these areas [1:29:31] and we've seen some successes but we need to replicate more of that success [1:29:38] I feel like maybe I can bring a different perspective and as well as being a teacher in the classroom every day when I walk around the high school [1:29:45] every teacher cares what every kid I mean you really see that in the way that we are working with kids we have office [1:29:51] hours before school and after school we have flex time students have student prep and they are at least in my class I [1:29:58] let them come in and retake tests during that time it used to be I had a prep period and now I would say four out of [1:30:04] five days I have a student in my room during my prep period so it's it's truly like the connections that we make and [1:30:10] it's the dedication that I see in our staff that really to work with every single kid to make those strong connections so I think it's such an [1:31:07] important point to talk about all students growing which is I think what you're referencing to and that's absolutely an important critical element [1:31:14] of the school district and students have to MIT meet basic performance thresholds [1:31:22] and so in the performance area is sometimes where we have that gap that we [1:31:28] have to focus on in the growth area we sometimes have gaps that we have to [1:31:33] focus on because students aren't growing as much as is expected so I totally agree with what you're saying it's an [1:31:40] and not an either/or though [1:31:51] it was like a desired point gain for reading in third grade but it was actually drop yes that was this yes that [1:32:01] would be true that would be correct okay no it's the it's good it's under [1:32:13] Eni the next slide there so when we [1:32:19] wrote the plan in 2016-17 the proficiency for third grade reading was [1:32:25] seventy eight point five we set as a goal to get to eighty seven percent and [1:32:31] this past year were at seventy five point five [1:32:39] those are the same students other [1:32:51] questions Tracy in a past world's best [1:32:59] workforce presentation there was a decile chart that showed growth targets [1:33:05] by decile and in at that time the top [1:33:10] decile so the 90th two hundredth and the 80th to 89th were growing at faster [1:33:18] rates and meeting their growth targets where the middle and lower deciles were [1:33:24] not is that consistent with the information we have now or has that changed so yes we do have that similar [1:33:36] pattern we tend to see our highest achieving students group hitting the [1:33:41] growth targets at the highest rates so that that is a consistent pattern in the [1:33:46] data [1:34:16] so yes we do look at the gap starting very early on so one of the things I [1:34:22] failed to mention two gentlemen here is that you know addressing the achievement [1:34:27] gap obviously we want to be starting very early because it starts very very early and typically in our system not [1:34:35] unlike other systems that third-grade achievement gap will persist to [1:34:41] graduation it's really difficult to see significant progress you just don't see it it's not common I'm not saying it [1:34:48] doesn't ever happen and that it can't happen but that it's it's very persistent [1:34:53] so targeting gap work early is really a good strategy it's one that we're we're [1:35:00] looking at and I think to your point also one of the things we did do is and [1:35:06] the achievement and integration budget is resources we were very intentional [1:35:24] about 25 percent it went specifically to [1:35:31] the six elementary schools so we could increase the math and reading support [1:35:36] right to your point you know when we say we're trying to read well by third grade and some of that money was not going [1:35:42] specifically to elementary then we were we're not going to hit our target at the [1:35:49] rate we want him [1:36:18] [Music] [1:36:33] yeah so so I can't speak to the exact numbers tonight but I can tell you that [1:36:41] we do have a what we call the blue whale in Edina especially at the early elementary on the map it's a very narrow [1:36:47] measure of math and reading our kids do very well on that assessment because [1:36:53] they're instructed in very very good ways and so you do see we have lots of [1:36:58] kids on the high end instead of a more normal distribution that's true [1:37:25] nope we still have it with six seven and eight it's just not as pronounced but that still you still see that pattern [1:37:31] you'll still see higher achieving kids in sixth seventh and eighth grade and so [1:37:37] we don't use that same measure at the high school level we we we kind of it [1:37:44] kind of use it loses its usefulness as kids age up and start doing more complex [1:37:52] learning tasks the map is not really a very good measure as kids age up and get [1:37:58] into that more complex learning so therefore we don't give it at the high school so we don't have that picture to [1:38:05] to corroborate I guess [1:38:27] cheers third-graders I know there was a lot of talk about how we had a tough our [1:38:33] scores last year well I do know that for [1:38:50] 80% of the fourth graders met or exceeded the expected growth target on [1:38:55] the MCA and I don't recall what it is for the map I'd have to get back to you but I do know that there's we're paying [1:39:01] close attention to that cohort third to fourth grade the so the fourth-grade cohort you're talking about I'm looking [1:39:07] at and they went last year there were 70% in the MCA reading third grade and [1:39:14] then the 2019 number for fourth grade is seventy one point eight so one point eight it is a different the fourth grade [1:39:27] reading test is a very difficult reading test it's probably the most difficult elementary MCA so it's a different test [1:39:47] any other questions all right thank you all right next on [1:40:18] the agenda is the consent I can sent agenda or is there anything to be removed from the consent agenda [1:40:24] can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda all those in favor of [1:40:31] approving the consent agenda say aye aye any opposed motion carried [1:40:46] so the next item is discussion but we have our auditors who are kind of [1:40:51] waiting for a later time period under action I'm wondering if the board is okay if we put the financial audit next [1:40:58] to precede discussion so that auditors could then go home so we got a motion [1:41:06] from Matt all those in favor of amending the agenda to put the financial audit [1:41:12] next say aye aye any opposed motion carried so I do hope the auditors here Matt saw [1:41:21] I'm in the back yes so now can I get a motion to approve the audit for 2019 as [1:41:30] well as to approve a transfer as listed in the board book [1:41:51] just just you know we didn't move you up so that you could lengthen your presentation [1:41:59] good evening chair wall and Freedman superintendent Schultz and members of the board tonight we present the [1:42:04] district financial audit report bill our from mm kr is the principal on the audit [1:42:11] and he has some information to share with the board and then any questions that board members may have bill good [1:42:21] evening I do very much appreciate your being able to move me up a little earlier this evening and I will do my [1:42:27] best to go through this quickly as we have already shared a lot of this information at the Finance Committee [1:42:34] meeting I'm going to kind of Ford you have if you have questions feel free to stop me as I'm going through it the [1:42:42] first thing I will do is make sure that I clarify to you what our role is as [1:42:49] auditor the primary document that you received in your board packet tonight as [1:42:54] a districts annual financial statements for the year ended June 30th 2019 [1:43:00] all of the data and disclosures that are included in that report out of the responsibilities of districts management [1:43:06] we provide the opinion at the front of that based on our audit as to whether it fairly presents the district's financial [1:43:13] position and results for the year under audit because the district earns more than seven hundred fifty thousand [1:43:19] dollars in federal grants each year you're also subject to what's referred to as a single audit of those federal [1:43:25] awards expenditures as part of both of those processes we test your internal [1:43:30] controls over financial reporting and compliance and you're also subject to an [1:43:36] audit of your compliance with Minnesota laws and regulations then you also received a separate report on the [1:43:42] district's extracurricular Student Activity reports as we discussed in the Finance Committee this is going to be [1:43:47] the last year that's going to be reported and separately into account change both are now going to be under [1:43:53] board control and in your general fund going forward this year we did issue an [1:43:59] opinion on the receipts and disbursements in those accounts and also a report letter on the controls and [1:44:05] compliance for those for that audit as far as the results once again we were [1:44:11] able to issue an unmodified or clean opinion on the district's financial statements I highest opinion that we can [1:44:17] get we had no internal control or compliance issues to report as far as [1:44:23] the district's financial reporting process we also had no findings this year in compliance with Minnesota laws [1:44:30] and regulations as far as the federal single audit we issued a clean opinion [1:44:35] on your schedule of expenditures of federal awards that they're fairly stated in relation to the basic financial statements I also had a clean [1:44:43] report there as far as your compliance internal controls and compliance with [1:44:48] federal regulations as far as spending those dollars one of the things we do [1:44:55] during our process is to follow up on any findings that were given in the prior year's audit you did have one [1:45:02] minnesota legal compliance finding in 2018 as far as timeliness of payment of claims we did test that again this year [1:45:10] in 2019 and found that all claims that we tested were paid timely so that was not a an ongoing issue in 2019 and then [1:45:20] on your Student Activity accounts as I mentioned this is a separate report it's [1:45:26] reported and a regulatory basis of accounting is required by the Minnesota Department of Education we do only a [1:45:34] pine on the reported receipts because you don't have controls these are student activity counts kept out in the [1:45:41] buildings they don't go through your regular financial business office so we [1:45:47] do limit our opinion there we did have one compliance issue to report here one [1:45:53] of the receipts that we tested was not deposited timely in accordance with the [1:45:58] regulations that the Department of Education puts out for overseeing these [1:46:03] accounts you supposed to be depositing these 'litham seven days not holding them over a weekend we thought one that was held [1:46:10] for more than seven days but that was it from from a compliance standpoint so [1:46:15] again all in all very clean audit just [1:46:21] briefly I will go through a few of the very high-level numbers we discussed the Finance Committee the district's general [1:46:27] fund is a primary operating fund this graph shows your financial position at [1:46:34] the end of the year for the last decade in terms of your total fund balance and cash balances at the end of the year you [1:46:41] had about thirty two million dollars in cash that's your end and you had a total [1:46:49] fund balance of about fourteen million dollars and that was an increase of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars [1:46:56] roughly three and a half million dollars better than the fund balance projected in your final budget this table shows [1:47:05] how you report that fund balance the different components of it non spendable [1:47:11] fund balances in your case is prepaid expenditures at about $31,000 there you [1:47:18] have about 2.6 million dollars at the end of the year in restricted fund balances these are mostly restrictions [1:47:24] state restrictions under you fires that 2.6 million dollars into your case is [1:47:29] almost entirely capital related operating capital long term facility maintenance then the unrestricted fund [1:47:37] balances are things that you control internally commitments are made by formal board action you've got a little [1:47:45] over a million dollars that's committed for cash flow purposes assignments are [1:47:51] internal earmarks not as formal as commitments that these are things you essentially set side set aside funds for [1:47:57] the majority of that three and a half million dollars in your case aside for retirement benefits and then the [1:48:04] unassigned fund balance just under 7 million dollars at the end of 19 is available for spending for any [1:48:12] purpose that is what relates to your fund balance policy is how you look at [1:48:18] that unassigned fund balance as a percent of your annual expenditures that [1:48:23] represented about 6% or 6.1 percent of your annual expenditures for the year [1:48:32] the largest revenue that you receive in the general fund the state aid the [1:48:37] biggest piece of that is general education aid you've gotten about a 2% [1:48:43] increase in your per pupil formula funding for each of the last five fiscal years the other thing that drives that [1:48:50] formula is the number of students that the district serves for aid after applying the waiting's you serve pupil [1:48:58] units of about ninety two hundred students for 2019 fiscal year that was a [1:49:04] drop of about half a percent in your student population for aid from the previous year [1:49:12] general fund revenues for 2019 were just over a hundred and seventeen million [1:49:18] dollars in total you're over budget by about one one and a half percent a [1:49:24] little under two million dollars almost all of that was in what's shown here in [1:49:29] the other category those are revenues like donations student fees investment earnings that [1:49:36] you budget very conservatively because they're non recurring and a little hard to predict revenues went up about six [1:49:45] million dollars from the prior year about five and a half percent about half of that was due to an increase in your [1:49:51] voter approved property tax operating referendum and about half of that came [1:49:57] an additional state aid to the general education formula and special education funding on the expenditure side [1:50:06] you spent just over 113 million in the general fund in 2019 spending was under [1:50:13] budget by about 3.8 million dollars roughly two and a half percent but the [1:50:19] big reason for that was really related to capital spending somewhat the timing of projects with the [1:50:26] larger larger change that there was your long-term facility maintenance revenue [1:50:31] all comes into the general fund but then it can be spent either from the general fund or for larger projects it gets [1:50:39] spent out of your building construction fund so you spent you've transferred about 3.2 million dollars from the [1:50:46] general fund over to that building construction fund it was spent there instead of in the general fund [1:50:51] expenditures went up by about five and a half billion dollars roughly five percent from the year before of the [1:51:00] majority of that was salaries and benefits briefly your other operating [1:51:07] funds the Food Service special revenue fund of the day or the fund balance of about 1.1 million dollars that was [1:51:15] roughly thirty seven percent of your annual expenditures in that fund which are about a few million dollars your [1:51:21] fund balance went up and that fund by ninety four thousand dollars that was roughly three hundred thousand dollars [1:51:27] better than projected about a third of that variance was additional revenue through meal sales over what you [1:51:34] projected and about two thirds of that was cost savings mainly in the purchase service area your community service fund [1:51:43] balance end of the year at about nine hundred and thirty thousand dollars or about twelve percent of your annual [1:51:48] expenditures in that fund which are around eight million dollars fund balance and there went up by one hundred [1:51:54] ninety two thousand dollars right in line with what she'd projected which was an increase of about one hundred and eighty nine thousand dollars and the [1:52:04] final slide that I have shows the very first [1:52:10] financial statement in your in your statements is a entity wide statement of [1:52:17] net position this takes all of your fun based information converts it to a full [1:52:22] accrual basis so it brings in all the long-term assets and liabilities that aren't reported in the funds and gives [1:52:29] you a longer term look at your financial position and the change in financial position the top portion of this [1:52:36] presentation Kanna walks you through how you get from the 44 million dollars in total fund balances and the funds we [1:52:43] just discussed to a deficit net position of about 42 million dollars you've got [1:52:49] about two hundred and sixty thousand redeem iliyan excuse me roughly of capital assets you've got about two [1:52:57] hundred and ten million of outstanding debt bond certificates of participation capital ISA situation to finance those [1:53:05] assets and then the majority of the rest of that liability there is pension and [1:53:10] okay blow bilities other post-employment benefits so long-term employee benefits [1:53:16] which is mainly why you're in that deficit net position the bulk of that relates to two statewide pension plans [1:53:23] for PE RA and tra where each district and city and everyone that participates [1:53:30] in those plans is allocated a portion of the statewide plan underfunding and you [1:53:36] have to report that on your entity wide financial statement so this this doesn't impact your fund financial statements at [1:53:43] all or how you pay for or finance those liabilities but it is something that you [1:53:49] do after a report and you get to this level as you can see your your total net [1:53:54] position improved by almost thirty million dollars from 2018 to 2019 and [1:54:01] about 25 million of that was due to change improvement in the funding levels [1:54:06] of those two statewide pension plans the rest of it a lot of it came in your net [1:54:12] investment in capital assets generally that a fairly stable number it's it's based [1:54:18] on how quickly your depreciating your capital assets versus how quickly you're paying your debt back but your district [1:54:26] does have a capital levy that you pass your referendum a few years ago so you [1:54:31] are adding capital a sus without having to add new debt so you're seeing that net investment of capital assets Rises a [1:54:39] little more quickly than you have in the past so I think that was everything I [1:54:45] was gonna cover I tried to hurry as quickly as I could questions on any of that or anything he wanted me to go into [1:54:50] in more detail I'll just make the [1:54:56] statement quickly that uh I think the district did an excellent job restoring the capital fund balance above the six [1:55:02] percent level that the board said as a target and this resulted also in the top credit rating within the state and this [1:55:09] is a very clean bill of health from an audit perspective so a year after implementing new accounting systems and [1:55:14] having a new finance director this is an excellent result of a district and administration to be proud of so thank you any questions [1:55:27] all right all those in favor of approving the transfer of funds from the general fund to the EC s EC Fe and for [1:55:35] approving the statements for the fiscal year ended June 30 2019 say aye hi any opposed motion carried [1:55:43] thank you very much next agenda item is [1:55:53] the school calendars Bryan and Randy you are up [1:56:49] good okay there we go all right chair for chair while in Freedman superintendent Schultz members of the [1:56:56] board thank you for this opportunity to present to you this evening an update from the calendar committee we do have [1:57:02] members of the calendar committee who join us up here as well as in the audience say mr. Wolfe Bauer back there [1:57:09] there any others thank you for being here this evening why don't we just go down the the roll here and just [1:57:16] introduce ourselves Brian bass assistant superintendent Randy small director of teaching learning Angela Ruby teacher at [1:57:23] Countryside jillsy Doreen parents of kids that countryside patty fryer [1:57:29] teacher at Highlands thank you also see [1:57:37] Lisa Masika back there too she also served as one of our administrative reps as well all right we have a few slides [1:57:49] here we can advance the slide somewhere [1:57:56] somebody might be able to advance it [1:58:03] there we go there we go alright so this quickly will highlight board parameters [1:58:10] stakeholder input and then the design of the calendar right next slide yeah we [1:58:23] can go straight to that that document execs got us back there [1:58:41] there we go all right so this is a should be a familiar document this is one that the board approved earlier in the fall to [1:58:48] give the committee parameters for what are one of those legal and contractual [1:58:55] pieces that we need to be aware of and then additional pieces over to the right what should the results of the calendar [1:59:01] be and so there's 11 letters there you can't see them very well in this particular slide but but there are 11 [1:59:08] items one of those items is around inclement weather days and at the time that the parameters were provided to the [1:59:14] committee we had not completed all of the steps for training our staff for the [1:59:19] e-learning days and we have since completed that training and have approval from the board on the e-learning days on the days where we [1:59:27] have inclement weather so I'm not sure that that particular item continues to be a need for us because we'll be able [1:59:33] to count all those days as learning days through the e-learning initiative that [1:59:40] we that were practicing this year all right next slide or yeah just yeah there [1:59:48] you go so the process so we've had four committee meetings our first meeting we reviewed the parameters item by item we [1:59:56] also looked at the previous survey tools that we that the committee has used in the past to get us to design and there [2:00:04] are questions for the survey to our stakeholders we then came back finished [2:00:09] the survey design and then our third meeting we analyzed the results that came back from the survey and then in [2:00:17] our last meeting we mapped out the calendar and so we are here today to present our best option and I will pass [2:00:25] it over to Randy to talk through the input that we received from our stuff or [2:00:30] our survey Thank You Bryan as Zach loads [2:00:35] that up we'll speak a little bit about the survey that we gave to stakeholders [2:00:41] we had a question survey that we created the survey was pretty straightforward we [2:00:47] talked through some of the different areas of the calendar discussion that we felt the committee needed some feedback [2:00:53] around and we modeled it after a previous survey but there was a little bit of tweaking in terms of the [2:00:59] questions we asked the stakeholders so the we don't have all of the questions up here but we have a few that we're [2:01:04] highlighting so from what perspective are you responding to the server I feel like I'm getting a little feedback here [2:01:11] perfect thank you so from the purse what perspectives are you responding to the [2:01:17] survey so we can see we had a variety of different stakeholders from district-wide staff to early childhood [2:01:22] staff we had elementary staff participate middle school and high school staff early childhood parents [2:01:30] parents of elementary children parents of middle school and high school [2:01:35] children and on this slide it kind of breaks out the numbers and the percentages of each I think we had about [2:01:41] a 700 staff that responded and the remaining numbers were from parents in [2:01:48] the community about 2,900 responses to the survey overall one of the questions [2:01:54] we asked was about yes one of the questions we asked is about what kind of [2:02:00] options would you prefer given kind of a forced choice requirement would you rather have [2:02:06] a longer holiday break typical holiday break and a shorter Thanksgiving Day [2:02:11] break or vice versa and as we saw from the data about 72 percent of the [2:02:17] respondents said we would rather have a shorter Thanksgiving break in a longer winter break so that is in reference to [2:02:24] the two weeks winter break and then having a Thanksgiving break that would be about three days long let go the next [2:02:32] slide the school district has offered late starts and early releases in the past what type of support would you [2:02:40] provide for these different choices and we did have a lot of discussion in the committee about the benefits of lay [2:02:46] starts and the benefits of early releases for professional learning opportunities and looking at data for [2:02:52] students with the teachers and we had a lot of discussion about you know which [2:02:57] of those are preferable and one of the things that we saw from this calendar survey data is that when we looked at [2:03:04] the data holistically there were certainly support for very specific [2:03:10] items or options that we had present so for example this one most of the support [2:03:15] was provided around early releases and Alice Angela to maybe speak to what that [2:03:21] means or how that plays out at the elementary classroom level and how an early release is different than a late [2:03:27] start so from a staff perspective early [2:03:34] release are preferred to late start and you understand that the early release [2:03:39] would be that students would leave the school day two hours prior to their normal dismissal time and then a late [2:03:45] start would they they would arrive two hours beyond where they would normally start so there are really three reasons [2:03:52] that kind of shine as why early releases are preferred the first being that [2:03:57] elementary students really thrive on routine so the morning routines that we establish in our classrooms really help [2:04:03] the students get off to a predictable right foot so to speak and when we have [2:04:09] late starts it really throws some of our students for a loop and it's really hard for those kids to settle into learning [2:04:15] and have a productive day so that's the first reason and then the second reason from a from a staff perspective when we [2:04:22] gather our thoughts are always on the students needs for the day so when we spend our staff development time in the [2:04:28] morning we have a tendency to be a little bit mentally distracted by the upcoming school day and what our [2:04:35] students need to learn and do that day whereas when we have early dismissal we've already wrapped up our student day [2:04:41] and can more fully rest our attention and focus on the staff development opportunity that we're given and then [2:04:47] the third one is again from the staff perspective for those people who want to [2:04:53] continue the conversation that maybe had begun during the opportunity or wrap-up [2:04:59] discussion or go a little deeper ask questions develop next steps we have [2:05:05] time to do that when it's an early release without having to rush off and have a hard stop to begin our student [2:05:12] day Thank You Angela for sharing that we recognize that's a perspective of an [2:05:19] educator in the system it's not necessary perspective of all of the the the families or the parents but when we [2:05:25] again looked at the data we saw that there was clearly a dominant selection [2:05:31] for that particular item and then in question four we said in terms of [2:05:37] frequency of late starts and early releases which model do you prefer and one of the discussions we had was about [2:05:45] making the late starts and early releases more frequent but less time so [2:05:52] keeping the amount of time the same but maybe doing them a little bit more frequently frequently or periodically [2:05:57] throughout the school year and we saw that at this time there there really wasn't as much appetite for that across [2:06:04] our stakeholders but there was support for continuing given these choices there was support to continue them as for day [2:06:12] two our early releases or late starts and then another question that we asked [2:06:18] was about how we would plan for making up whether day emergency days and as [2:06:24] Brian mentioned at the time when we were constructing this we had not yet finalized the plan for exactly what [2:06:30] that's gonna look like at the elementary level and now that we have our e-learning plan in place and we are [2:06:35] training staff at the elementary though we've already trained staff at the secondary level and how to prepare for [2:06:41] that we feel like this is an unnecessary item to address because our e-learning [2:06:47] plan will in fact address that so with that those are our survey results those [2:06:52] aren't all the results but those were just some highlights of some of the results that inform the committee and [2:06:57] again the survey wasn't a vote it was input gathered from stakeholders so that the committee could take that [2:07:04] input back and look at everything holistically and digest that input and [2:07:09] then bring forward to you this evening what the committee felt were the best options for how to lay this out in a [2:07:15] calendar year so with that I'll turn it back to Brian and how this all comes together all right Thank You Randy and [2:07:23] Angela for for those comments so the giraffe that we're about to show you then is a culmination of the [2:07:31] input and information from the parameters the contractual and statute the statute pieces as well as the survey [2:07:38] responses so sack if you can cue up the school calendars and I'll speak generally to the highlights and if there [2:07:44] any specific questions that the board has we're happy to speak to and respond [2:07:50] to any of those questions if you could scroll to the next one the 2021 we'll start with the first year thank you that [2:07:56] so the winter break as as Randy [2:08:03] mentioned in this first year of the calendar will be two full weeks that's a [2:08:08] that that was something that we were able to meet in the first year you'll also see that in November on election [2:08:15] day we have an on student contact day there that was there's a lot of feedback coming from the community around not [2:08:21] having school in session when there are elections and so that will be a day for parent-teacher conferences for our four [2:08:28] for the district the other piece around early releases we're moving to our early [2:08:33] releases one of those days will stay attached to the day before a break [2:08:39] you'll see in October MEA that the 13th there is the first of the four early [2:08:45] release dates and that is attached to the MEA break the other three are located in am i looking at the wrong one [2:08:55] oh just yeah there we go alright so it was actually loaded correctly thank you [2:09:03] so scroll let's scroll down a little bit there can we scroll down yeah yeah so [2:09:12] it's the 14th there's the first date instead of the 13th and the previous calendar but the election day is still [2:09:17] you'll still see that that piece there in that lighter green that we were able to honor that in both years so the [2:09:24] winter break their early releases and then the other part of the early releases is that we didn't want to have all of those attached to a winter break [2:09:30] so that the that the focus on professional development was prioritized and as yeah and then spring breaks one [2:09:40] of the consider we have for Spring Breaks is the sweet spot between the state tournaments for [2:09:47] winter sports ending and also the MCA testing window and trying to make sure that we put that in a spot that [2:09:53] advantages teaching and learning and also that students who may be participating in state tournaments [2:10:00] wouldn't be penalized that that that their tournament is happening during a spring break window and I don't know [2:10:07] that most districts have that to contend with but the streak that we're on right now who knows what could happen in [2:10:14] winter sports at that time the other piece that I would offer is that one [2:10:20] thing that we wrestle with as a committee is that there are certain certain but there are cultural [2:10:26] celebrations that happen throughout our community and as much as possible we tried to be aware of those we do have a [2:10:32] blackout date calendar that our school principals and our staff used to try to be as culturally sensitive to those [2:10:38] dates throughout the year in the in the first year of this calendar 2020 2021 [2:10:44] there were some natural alignments to some of those celebrations that happen [2:10:49] throughout the year in the second year it was much tougher and so I'm just acknowledging that and that's something [2:10:55] that we want to strive for we do have some ideas around meeting with some of our stakeholder groups and working on [2:11:02] that blackout date calendar to make sure that our educators have that in the spring and that they're able to plan [2:11:08] around those pieces for the upcoming school year and I think I'll pause I'll [2:11:14] pause there any questions [2:11:31] anyway could you talk to us about the the election days [2:11:47] so what is the feedback there and why are we going [2:12:02] so we received some pretty strong messaging from community members from [2:12:08] parents as well as staff about guests [2:12:14] and visitors to our school buildings on election days and so there was there was [2:12:23] quite a bit of agreement and excitement around not having that be a student [2:12:28] contact day not just from the committee members but from many different stakeholder groups parents and staff so [2:12:36] I'm not sure if Mary awardee our communications lead could speak to how many messages we received regarding not [2:12:43] having a student contact day on Election Day but there was there quite a few I know the election officials from the [2:12:49] city had asked us to look at his other school districts have done the same thing just managed the disruption of [2:12:57] people walking in out of school during those election days [2:13:35] we certainly spoke about that and we did have representation from our AME group [2:13:41] that that spoke to this shift what isn't clear is the practice around it and what [2:13:46] districts will shift to how they'll shift to align to that and I think so we're so early in it that we don't have [2:13:52] a precedent necessarily established and I think we we we didn't feel comfortable [2:13:57] setting a precedent [2:14:54] thank you for that perspective I think when we looked at the survey data we had [2:15:00] two different weeks where we had the green light and this was one of the two weeks and because we had it a little bit [2:15:06] later the year before we went with the earlier date there because it didn't naturally aligned to any of the other [2:15:12] cultural celebrations that were happening if we had it a later week and so since there wasn't that alignment we [2:15:18] thought okay well we were kind of split there with spring breaks well why don't we have this one a bit earlier after a [2:15:24] conversation with Troy Stein this afternoon that that latter week the week after maybe a better week because the [2:15:32] Saturday of the second year it would be the state championship game for boys [2:15:37] basketball so we could potentially if we had a boys basketball team in the state [2:15:42] championship game it could impede on their their access to the full Spring Break so that parents had expressed in [2:15:55] the past that it's nice to know as they are planning ahead that it's just always that kind of last week but otherwise [2:16:03] great job on the calendar you guys I think it's great it medians it's very [2:16:09] consistent between the two years outside of that that one thing I just mentioned and we are looking at the pre Labor Day [2:16:16] start but I think you guys did excellent work and and my last question would be [2:16:21] around are you looking at a rolling calendar did that discussion happen so [2:16:26] that parents don't have to get to this point where it's December and they're waiting to plan for the next fall [2:16:32] looking back at one of our parents who introduced that concept so thank you so much yes so that that is a proposal that [2:16:39] we would have after this one is approved in December we would recommend having a [2:16:46] rolling calendar from their own so we're always 18 months out in advance and that [2:16:51] we don't have the situation that we're currently in where folks aren't aware of what we're having after June 30th for [2:16:57] this upcoming year and we really wanted to honor the two weeks in both years however the way that New Year's Day [2:17:04] falls on that weekend in 2022 it's the Monday after so being able to keep all [2:17:09] of that and that extra would have had us coming back for a short week that second week in June and that just we didn't [2:17:14] want to do that sure sure [2:17:27] alright alright there are no further yeah can I go back to the question or [2:17:34] what you alluded to about maybe the challenge around the state basketball and is there I guess do you have a [2:17:41] recommendation that we keep Spring Break the same week or do you have a recommendation that we alter the [2:17:46] calendar to move it so there aren't any conflicts with any sort of athletics or [2:17:53] extracurriculars so I think that in the [2:17:59] first year where it's located it certainly aligns to some of the [2:18:05] cultural celebrations of members within our community for example Passover aligns and so that's how we really [2:18:12] landed in that week and because it wasn't as advantageous it wasn't close [2:18:20] enough Passover in the second year then it made it a little bit that that consideration was kind of not as front [2:18:27] and center as the other pieces that we talked about in terms of academic the MCA testing season as well as the state [2:18:34] competition I think I think having it be that same week has a lot of Merit it [2:18:41] does give it more space from the state tournament and so I think I don't think we I don't think we have any opposition [2:18:47] to that to that latter week at all if it didn't have any of the dependencies on any sort of cultural issues and it would [2:18:55] benefit from not having an issue with any sort of athletics or [2:19:01] extracurriculars I just didn't know if it would be an option or if that would be a recommendation that you guys would [2:19:06] have would be to approve the calendar pending moving that one week and I don't [2:19:12] know I don't know how any of my other board members feel about it or if you guys are like nope we just want to keep it I just wanted to get your opinion on [2:19:18] that matter so one of the things that was also taken into consideration for [2:19:23] the Spring Breaks is on the survey the two weeks were pretty closely aligned for the results of when people wanted [2:19:30] them so we thought to meet the needs of each group we would do one earlier one year one later the second-year had a couple [2:19:39] questions actually first on that is there is there concern about where it [2:19:44] lies within the semester within a term that impacts where it would go is there a better natural break point and because [2:19:51] we vary when we start the school year that that might dictate where spring break goes I started that one I think [2:19:59] that was more of our discussion around the semester break as that was one of [2:20:04] the items in the parameters in terms of spring break in that natural fall for [2:20:09] because we're semester long I mean we certainly have to nine week stretches [2:20:15] and so having it that latter week we get is pretty much to the halfway point of the semester so that they would come [2:20:21] back and have the nine weeks left a semester so that would that would put it there but we didn't have formal [2:20:26] discussion on the placement of it in relationship to where it lands in the semester only in relationship to the [2:20:31] MCAS I mean other questions about the blackout days and it's more about the [2:20:37] practice we have do we have a consequence-free type environment when somebody explains they won't be in school for reasons of [2:20:43] conscience that you know we're particularly flexible with regard to [2:20:49] working ahead or catching up without consequence and maybe even not trying to schedule the most exciting guest on that [2:20:55] to hit that sort of thing yeah there were a few perspectives represented [2:21:00] there and I've heard principal Beaton mentioned it several times that we absolutely want to make sure that we're [2:21:07] sensitive to those celebrations and I think what may be more clear this year is also the day that students return [2:21:14] from a celebration that there isn't a major exam or summative assessment due on that day they return because we want [2:21:21] to make sure that they're able to be present and really fully enjoy and embrace the the celebration that they're a part of yep [2:21:30] a couple quick questions on the 2021 2022 calendar [2:21:37] you've got final exams the 19th through the 21st but then you have no school in the 21st so is that supposed to be the [2:21:45] 18th to the 20th for finals this is the 2021 2022 calendar looks like final [2:21:55] exams go to it Zack can you pull up the the calendars again there were a couple [2:22:00] of edits since that first one so if you're looking at the most recent one that was loaded to board book that may [2:22:07] have been corrected so are we talking first semester or second semester January 21st is it a two days but then [2:22:19] it's listed as a finals day that's a typo that's example so maybe the final should [2:22:25] be 18 to the 20th correct and then the follow-up question is the prior year it's the prior week for finals so it [2:22:33] looks like one year has a longer first semester than the other year and so which of course really means those [2:22:39] shorter second semester and I didn't count days or anything like that but was there some intentionality in terms of [2:22:46] having a longer year in the second year [2:22:51] of the calendar yeah that was it that was not intentional and we did not have [2:22:56] that conversation so we'll have to make [2:23:02] sure that it's the same in both years so I know that with the spring semester for the single semester AP classes there's [2:23:09] always a concern about whether the semester is too short to get the material in and of course the flip is [2:23:15] for those people who have finals like right after they get back from school they probably would rather have the [2:23:21] extra week particularly with the Monday off but so if you can just take a look at those years and see if there's any [2:23:29] thought on the different week that they each first semester ends thank you [2:23:36] that's why it never hurts to have another set of eyes on you any other [2:23:44] questions twice thank you very much next let's [2:24:01] wait for a video next item is the [2:24:08] substitute teacher management system John and Brian [2:24:28] so we will be brief and then able to elaborate at your [2:24:36] request so again board chair wildin Friedman supertunia Schultz members of the board [2:24:42] here to talk about a concern we have with our subsystem we do have some [2:24:48] teachers in the house I'm sure they would testify some frustration as well in terms of our current subsystem and [2:24:54] it's fill rate currently we have one staff person in our human resources [2:25:00] department who is recruiting hiring onboarding orienting and maintaining [2:25:05] this pool for our sites and in a lot of time is going into supporting this [2:25:12] particular process for the district subs are critical to support our staff who [2:25:19] are ill who if they're out ill or in order for them to access timely professional development opportunities [2:25:26] throughout the year we we would like to suggest that we request for proposals to [2:25:34] determine if there's a vendor who can assist and provide much needed support and increase our fill rate capacity for [2:25:41] subs in in our district so this would allow us to reallocate the time and [2:25:48] resource of our current staff person in this area to help us with some recent legislation around the wage theft law [2:25:54] and there's a lot of implications and how that particular law is rippling out to districts across the state so that's [2:26:03] sort of our high-level view John has a few documents he'd like to talk through in terms of some cost pieces related to [2:26:10] this and some potential savings that we could have with a potential vendor [2:26:16] thanks Brian you have a number of documents in your board packet one of [2:26:22] them is basically a cost analysis which is going over a summary of the prior worksheets that are [2:26:29] subsequent thereto the cost analysis and I'll just go over those very briefly we [2:26:36] believe that we will get responses in this RFP that will result in some hard [2:26:42] cost savings over what we spent last year in our substitutes we also believe [2:26:48] that there is a fairly substantial amount and one of the things that Brian was referring to was repurposing that [2:26:54] person that is responsible for subbing in the HR office to the wage theft law [2:27:01] so we believe that there will be substantial soft cost savings and also some hard cost savings with this [2:27:09] proposal we believe that we'll get at least two vendors that will respond to this proposal and we will send this out [2:27:17] if the board approves it tonight as soon as possible for possible approval by the board at their December meeting and I [2:27:28] can go over any of the sheets you want me to if you want to go into more detail with questions on on those sheets so are [2:27:36] you saying that with the wage theft law that if we don't do this that we'll have to have additional FTE time to meet the [2:27:44] requirements of that law no we are spread thin trying to meet that and we [2:27:50] also have some turnover in the department and so it's it's proving to be quite the task this so I mean that [2:28:00] suggests that if if this doesn't work out that you might be seeking additional FTE support well we currently are [2:28:09] spreading that across the team and and we were distributing that labor of love across across the department but this [2:28:17] would allow us to to have a person really locked in on that in particular [2:28:24] so just for clarification the driver on this is operational that it's hard to [2:28:30] fill substitute roles and you want to work with a vendor who dedicates more [2:28:35] other time to doing this yes okay and cost savings is secondary or it's a [2:28:41] nice benefit to this absolutely nice benefit okay good thanks we I know we [2:28:57] talked about this at HR because we wanted to make sure that we were still ensuring that we get the best substitute [2:29:03] teachers when the district is involved and that in ensuring that the company [2:29:09] who had ever company we end up using is is guaranteeing that for us and that you [2:29:15] know that they're there that this does not take away anything from the district but hopefully adds some help but you [2:29:23] know hopefully a zero hour or cost savings but those those were some of our [2:29:29] main concerns is that we want to make sure that we're still getting the best which is what were used to could you [2:29:36] explain to me a little bit how the process works as far as a teacher or administrator actually selecting a sub [2:29:43] because I know certain teachers might have certain preferences and have worked with subs in the past and their students [2:29:51] are used to having specific subs is will we have consistency from that [2:29:56] perspective or is it more like going to a temp agency where it only whoever's I [2:30:03] mean I think it's wonderful from the perspective that we'll have more to choose from I just worry about part of [2:30:11] subbing and teaching as a personal relationship as well will we lose any of that great question so in in terms of [2:30:19] the quality of service there are several popular vendors that are out there when [2:30:26] I was in employed in st. st. Paul public schools we use teachers on-call I think Hopkins uses teachers on-call and what [2:30:33] winds up happening is that for example we have an existing sub pool so that [2:30:39] group would be grand grandfathered into and automatically rolled into our sub so [2:30:44] all of our current subs would continue to have be eligible for student for our [2:30:50] staff to select those candidates and then we'll lines of emerging is that you get substitute teachers who enjoy working in [2:30:57] certain school environments and so so those relationships start to form and expand and that pool is broad it's a [2:31:05] it's a deeper pool and we're able to to draw on more eligible licensed staff [2:31:11] that our current pool doesn't provide us [2:31:20] John can you just talk a little bit about the process with the RFP so this is a discussion item [2:31:26] so after this informational items and your intent to put this out for RFP and [2:31:32] then bring it back for board approval in January you're going to have them improve the RFP and December then post [2:31:38] the RFP you know it was my understanding that we'd ask for approval tonight for [2:31:44] the to place the RFP out receive that back in time so that we could into an [2:31:51] analysis of the vendors that responded and then bring that back to the board on December 16th for a potential [2:31:57] implementation in January so do we need approval of an RFP or is this more of an informational item for the board well I [2:32:04] think I think as we talked about it in HR committee because of the magnitude of [2:32:09] this amount that will probably be prudent to have the board approve going [2:32:14] out for RFP it's we're talking a million dollars and even a little bit more than a million dollars that's why we brought [2:32:21] it to the board tonight and would like to seek formal approval from the board to quality RFP on this so and so do you [2:32:30] have it I mean it's a time sensitive that you need the approval tonight because you're trying to get this for [2:32:36] the start of a new semester not necessarily it will dovetail probably [2:32:42] fairly nicely with that if you want to add yeah I I mean I think our teachers and and I've heard from a number of them [2:32:51] frustrated that they haven't been able to access some of the the timely professional development opportunities that we have front-loaded in the [2:32:58] district and so as as soon as we're able to have a vendor emerge that meets the [2:33:05] criteria we have we want to be able to roll as as quickly as possible [2:33:16] so are there other questions because if you're gonna want approval we would need [2:33:21] a motion to approve it this has been set as a discussion item so our normal protocols discussion followed by action [2:33:28] the next month we have occasionally varied from that on issues that's that [2:33:39] was the question whether you're actually because if you send it for RFP do we [2:33:45] have to accept the bid no we do not have to accept we can reject any and all bids [2:33:51] and wave in are your real irregularities if we like so you can send it out for an [2:34:00] RFP and then come back in December with a motion to approve the RFP and the basically their response to it yes yeah [2:34:07] we can do that that would be a little more consistent with our process alright [2:34:19] thank you thank you [2:34:28] so before we get to the next item I'd like to just take a ten-minute recess [2:34:33] let me go on for two and a half hours [2:34:39] okay we'll do a five-minute recess [2:36:10] hello hello [2:37:39] you [2:38:42] you [2:39:48] you [2:41:51] check check check check [2:42:13] all right welcome back everybody hello everybody grab seats quiet down [2:42:22] all right we are back and recess is over [2:42:29] we are next on to policy updates Ameer okay these are the ones on the [2:42:35] discussion side we have four policies 532 use of peace officers and crisis [2:42:41] teams to remove students with IPS from school ground that very minimal actual change changing the order of the word [2:42:49] some off or surge of crisis teams the crisis team comes first as more of just a tone but not an actual substantive [2:42:55] change 6:24 online learning options relatively minor edits there's a new [2:43:02] clarifying appendix on grade level clarification and it's worth noting that for online courses that have a fee the [2:43:09] district will pay for it if it fits within your idea of a full schedule but [2:43:15] if you're trying to do something in addition to a full schedule then the student would pay and if you wanted the [2:43:20] district to pay for it you would have to then actually drop one of the courses that currently made up your full load to [2:43:27] to make it fit so you're getting the same educational quantity of other students and then 7-eleven Student [2:43:35] Activities accounting in compliance with a change in statute the school board is [2:43:40] taking charge of financing for some clubs that it didn't previously somewhere and be more informal and/or [2:43:47] had a history of just being managed outside of the district and that's relatively common and putting those [2:43:54] under boards per view now is required and so that'll be relatively common as we go around the state and then 720 [2:44:01] uniform grant guidance policy regarding federal revenue sources nearly dollar numbers changing and that's from statute [2:44:10] all right any questions okay on to the next discussion item [2:44:17] which is administrative presentation on impact on changes to policy six so on so [2:44:23] I'm just going to ask our leap leadership team to come forward as presenting press and [2:44:40] yeah I'm I'll stay here it's too crowded up there so just to start with a little [2:44:51] background policy 601 has taken on a bit of a different journey to tonight's meeting them than other policies [2:44:58] administration has had some limited interaction with with the board around [2:45:03] this policy and so we weren't a present when that policy was drafted but and the [2:45:12] board has reviewed this language as it was presented by director Jones director [2:45:17] Michaelson and director Garvey on September 16th in a work session October 14th and a board meeting and then [2:45:22] tonight on November 18th director we've had several discussions about the policy [2:45:29] and policy committee the board has also had had Erica Alan Berg Lenny Walden [2:45:36] Friedman and Amir Garvey meet with me and Randy to determine further process [2:45:41] with 601 and and how would be informed [2:45:47] by the administration so tonight's really the only opportunity we've had to give some input to policy six so on and [2:45:55] the so the background for this presentation is I'm charged with as a [2:46:00] superintendent is to provide you with with the impact to this to this policy [2:46:08] and and really to provide the board with [2:46:14] the with the implications of what it would mean to implement this policy the [2:46:22] tonight's presentation we're going to talk a little about the timeline of [2:46:32] curriculum review the background will give us some give you some background on [2:46:38] our advanced learner learner's and and also talk about talent development [2:46:44] framework we'll also have our elementary middle school and high school leadership talk about the impact this this this [2:46:53] policy can have on the program so with that I'm going to start by talking about talking about the [2:47:01] administrative recommendation just to begin so you have some something to attach this to but we're recommending [2:47:08] that the school board work with administration and the teacher representatives to rewrite policy six so [2:47:14] on to align with the state align curriculum development cycles also consideration of fiscal limitations [2:47:21] timelines for development and alignment to the proposed k12 talent development framework should be reconsidered to [2:47:27] improve likelihood of implementation so as policy 601 is written administration [2:47:33] does not support the changes to policy 601 when we met with a mere Lenny and [2:47:43] Eric it was we I was asked to present this to legal counsel and so Trevor [2:47:50] helmers has provided this background I asked the board legal counsel to review and provide input on the policy he he [2:47:57] did prepare an opinion that is protected by attorney-client privilege and may be reviewed by board members individually [2:48:03] but indicated that I could share the following points publicly the board has the leader ruled on legal issues [2:48:09] surrounding this type of program similarly there are a number of practical issues that would arise which [2:48:15] should be reviewed and considered before approving the policy so I do have his [2:48:20] opinion and board members like to review that individually let me know and we can set up a time for you to review that so [2:48:26] this is a could you read that again please sure I got this on Friday so I [2:48:36] asked the board's legal counsel to review and provide input on the policy he prepared an opinion that is protected [2:48:42] by the attorney-client privilege and may be reviewed by board members individually but indicated that I could [2:48:48] share the following points publicly the board has the legal authority to make these changes but there are a number of [2:48:54] potential unintended consequences of an acting this policy that may lead to legal liability now and in the future [2:49:00] this would be the first program of its kind in the state and thus no court has specifically reviewed are ruled on legal [2:49:07] issues this type of program similarly there are a number of practical issues that would arise which should be reviewed and [2:49:13] considered before approving the policy so I wouldn't turn it over to to Randy [2:49:20] to begin talking about the implications of the policy the opinion I have the [2:49:35] opinion in my office you'll have to yes I'll have to I you'll have to come in [2:49:40] and review it as what he wants what are [2:49:45] you asking we're asking to see the opinion so the [2:49:53] so the pity I don't have the opinion here so I have I can provide it to you what Trevor would like is for you to [2:49:59] come into the office and review the opinion but how do we do that when we're in the middle of a board meeting where [2:50:04] we're about to work on this I can I don't share do you have any suggestions [2:50:11] I could I mean if you've had the Friday why were we not told that we could come in prior to that prior to this meeting [2:50:18] to review the opinion yeah yes I could have come in today of course not I mean [2:50:33] this just seems like it's coming out of left field so we can take another [2:50:40] 10-minute recess so people can go read it that's what people want I don't have an issue with that [2:50:47] okay we're in recess for 10 more minutes [2:50:55] yeah I think I want to go into the conference room or you wanted me to [2:51:01] bring the opinion in here [2:51:14] you